The Good Old Payphone

I was walking around town the other day on my way to a job interview when I caught site of this beauty. Oh yes, this has been around since well around the early ’90s as long as I can remember. I used them in school, since mobile phones were not around back then and these were cheaper even after mobile phones did appear. They were quite a few in the beginning, but after a while became quite frequent in our daily lives.

As you can see, they’ve fallen in the meantime, many to vandalism, most to trend. Thing is, it’s just not worth it to travel with a card in your pocket rather than a mobile phone. Well, onto the design bit. It’s a simple device with the soul purpose of making calls. So it should have a full keypad with # and * in case you need them, a card slot, and a display to show the number. It has a nice black receiver which feels a bit heavy but otherwise nice, a clearly visible card slot, and a nice big readable LCD display. We can check those off our list although I have some reservations on the LCD but it does its job well. The really strange bit though is the control pannel.

On the left we have a set of instructions. Very suggestive, very well balanced and quite understandable. First means pick up receiver and wait for tone, then insert card chip side up, and finally dial number. The odd bit however comes in the buttons. While there are the normal international phone buttons, there’s also a few that have me perplexed. We start with the triangle button which is pretty common sense for volume. But not as suggestive as one may like. Also, I have no idea how it works by looking at it. Does it go louder? Does it display a menu? And we know that users don’t like to guess so they don’t use it. Now onto the really strange ones:

This is the i button. I had no idea what this was as a kid, but now it tells me it sounds like info. What info could I possibly get from a payphone? If I remember correctly, this was used to change language. Quite useless these days but politically correct. If you ask me there should be a small RO/EN/D/FR on it to symbolize that. But that brings clutter. Anyway, hidden functionality. That kills a point off of usability.

The infamous K button. I’ve used it allright but I have absolutely not the slightest idea as to what it actually does… Pressed it while talking, while standby, while prank calling, to no effect.

And now onto my favourite, the squiggly lines button. I looked at this for a few young years of my life and said look, that’s probably for headphones, and since I hadn’t really used any so far, the idea of the jack in was foreign to my ears. Took me a few misfortunate calls to realise it’s actually a disconnect button. Makes sense really, just not at once. It’s a wire being broken. But what’s the purpose, you already have a big black one where the receiver hangs… No function means it confuses users for no reason. Big problem.

Well, this has been it for our first review, and it’s time to give out scores to this item of (once) everyday use:

• Visual: 7/10 (Clean and functional design but nothing special. Also, it’s painted orange which looks ghastly)
• Ease of use: 9/10 (Simple, readable instructions, international too, only thing dragging it down are the mystery buttons)
• Redundancy: 5/10 (Much of it and for no reason. Buttons that will never be used and two buttons to hang up. What’s the point?)
• Ergonomy: 8/10 (While it fits nicely in your hand and on your ear, the receiver feels heavy for no reason, and the wire connecting it is metallic so it leaves little freedom of motion)
• Satisfaction: 6/10 (Basic satisfaction from using a phone. I gave it a 6 because it reminds me of a simpler time, and thieves stealing my card while I was speaking on the phone)

OVERALL: 32/50 Medium (A normal everyday object with no thrills and no unexpected surprises. You get what you expect and nothing more, but it gets the job done)