URL: http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/05/13/tem_kendrick_talking.html
Cincinnati Inquirer
Sunday, May 13, 2001
Alive & Well
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Talking ATMs sound sweet
map It isn't often that I wish to live anywhere but
Cincinnati. An experience last month in Los Angeles and news last week
in Columbus and Chicago triggered twinges of wistfulness, however.
The cause of this is nothing more exotic than an automated
teller machine.
At an ordinary Bank of America ATM in Los Angeles, I plugged
in the earphone from my purse, and listened to a friendly voice
welcoming me to the machine.
After a brief verbal orientation to keypad layout and other
points on the face of the machine, I inserted my card, entered my PIN,
and proceeded with an independent withdrawal of my own money for the
first time.
Verbalizing the prompts on the screen, the "talking ATM" asked
the usual questions. Withdraw from savings or checking? If checking,
press "Key X" which is located in the top right corner of the keypad.
After pressing keys, my choices were confirmed in my ear as they are
on the screen, and so it went, until the friendly voice told me where
to remove my cash, my receipt, my card, and the transaction was
completed. The voice also informed me that, because I am not a Bank of
America customer, my account would be charged $1.50. For the first
time, I didn't care.
Like 12 million other Americans unable to read the ATM screen,
my only solution to using them has been to memorize the sequences of
one particular machine or to trust others - sometimes total strangers
- to read the screen prompts for me.
Yes, there is braille on thousands of machines around the
country, but braille is static information, providing none of the
direct feedback that directs a bank customer through a transaction.
Placing braille labels on ATM machines was a good faith effort on the
part of the banking industry a decade ago to comply with the law,
requiring that at least one machine at each location have information
rendering it usable by people with impaired vision.
Due to the effort of two California-based civil rights
lawyers, Lainey Feingold and Linda Dardarian, along with blind
advocates in a growing number of cities, voice-equipped ATMs have been
appearing since 1999. The first machine to talk in the U.S. was
installed by the San Francisco City Credit Union in San Francisco's
City Hall in October 1999.
Since then, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Fleet of Boston and, most
recently, Bank One have installed about 400 voice-equipped ATMs with
commitments to install thousands more over the next five years.
Most recently and closest to home, Bank One unveiled 15
talking ATMs in Columbus and another 15 in Chicago April 25. All
agreements to date have been collaborative between banks and
customers, facilitated by the attorneys but without adversarial
litigation.
The intent, in other words, is generally to do the right
thing.
Diebold Inc., one of the leading manufacturers of ATMs, forged
an agreement last November with the National Federation of the Blind
to research the most cost-effective way of producing ATMs with speech.
Meanwhile, the numbers of installations are growing in several
cities. For those of us in the Tristate who are unable to use the
traditional ATM, the only solution is to grab the opportunity whenever
we're in Columbus, Chicago, or nearly any city in California, Florida,
or Massachusetts. I predict that no one will mind paying that $1.50
surcharge for equal access.
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