The effect of colour, luminance, contrast, icons, forgiveness and closure on ATM interface efficiency

Abstract

Automatic teller machines (ATM) are an intermediate stage in the progression of banking technology. This intermediate stage is expected to remain until user perceptions of electronic banking have improved. ATM transaction costs are high and it is a concern to banks to keep their customers using their ATM machines rather than those of their competitors. The paper attempts to answer the question of what can make it easier for users to use ATM machines. A research instrument was created to test the users' reactions to certain interface principles, with the hope of determining what principles significantly reduced the time to complete a transaction. The variables tested were colour, luminance, contrast, icons, forgiveness and closure. Of these variables, the grouping of colour, luminance and contrast resulted in a significant difference in mean time to complete a transaction. Further testing of these times found that the decrease in transaction time did not significantly increase the user efficiency.