One person who is definitely not happy now is the man who bought a UK National Lottery ticket with all six numbers correct and then discovered he had been given a ticket for the wrong date. He was so unhappy that he contacted the BBC consumer program Watchdog for help. Watchdog believed that the fault lay with the design of the ticket machine and asked us to comment on its ergonomics. I was happy to investigate and in the best tradition of ergonomics decided to collect some data from real life. Design of the ticket machine I spent a short time watching people buy tickets and soon concluded that the design of the ticket machine was poor from the cashier's and the customer's point of view.
Many customers forget to indicate which draw they want to enter on the slip.
Others want a 'Lucky Dip' ticket. In both cases, the cashier is prompted to ask them which draw and then press a single key to toggle through the options - one press for Wednesday, two presses for Saturday and three presses for both draws. It is easy to make a mistake and the system does not query unusual purchases - the unlucky customer had bought his ticket on a Saturday afternoon and was given one for the following Wednesday draw without any questions being asked. The use of a single key is likely to increase errors in itself and this is further aggravated by the design of the keyboard. It is a low travel membrane type keypad which provides the user with little tactile feedback.