Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Card payment terminals
Raised as a usability problem by 52 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2014–2026), in 40 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Chip card payments take 8-10 seconds at some storesUnreviewed
20142026- Paying by card requires walking to back office and waiting on slow old terminal2022-03-31
- Card payments take 30-60 seconds to process at some stores2020-03-09
- Hard to tell when the card can be removed, so chip payment is slower than swiping2020-02-12
Tip prompts appear before payment completes, pushing higher tipsUnreviewed
20142026- Merchant tapped accept before customer could read and choose the tip2026-02-13
- Tip prompts appear before payment completes, pushing people to tip more2025-10-05
- Tipping percentage options pushed onto customers at payment, skipping requires finding the continue button2025-04-27
Swiping instead of inserting causes errors and restarted payment stepsUnreviewed
20142026- Card must be inserted and fail three times before swipe works2017-12-13
- Terminals require swiping first, then insertion, with long waits and confusing 'swipe card' prompts2016-07-27
- Customers confused by inserting instead of swiping, causing slow, bad checkout experiences2016-07-25
Must press Cancel at PIN prompt to choose creditUnreviewed
20142026- Credit option is hidden behind a cancel step, with no instructions, and each step is slow2019-03-02
- Extra confirm-charges prompt after entering PIN, and accidental 'No' selections2017-03-04
- Must press Cancel at PIN prompt to choose credit, confusing2016-12-27
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Merchant tapped accept before customer could read and choose the tip2026-02-13
- Tip prompts appear before payment completes, pushing people to tip more2025-10-05
- Terminals make it easy to accept currency conversion without realizing it2025-07-09
- Tipping percentage options pushed onto customers at payment, skipping requires finding the continue button2025-04-27
- Tip prompt pressures people to tip, feeling like a dark pattern with skipping hard2025-04-27
- Can't use muscle memory, must look at screen and risk mis-tapping digits2024-11-03
- Tip screen forces customers to press 'no' or pick a nonzero amount, a dark pattern2024-07-21
- Terminals only offer a currency choice, making it hard to pick the local one2024-07-19
- No-tip option hidden behind tiny font and extra swipe pages2023-09-18
- No Tip option hard to find quickly; default tip gets selected under pressure2023-09-18
- Asked to choose tap or insert before paying, when the card choice should be unnecessary2023-04-11
- Chip readers often fail, forcing shoppers to retry or use another method2022-12-04
- Card must stay inserted for 10-20 seconds until the terminal finishes2022-06-14
- Two screens, two instruction sets and mismatched keypads make the machine confusing to use2022-05-08
- Paying by card requires walking to back office and waiting on slow old terminal2022-03-31
- Forces customers to decide on a tip and interact with the screen before paying2021-09-13
- Taxi card payment terminals are often broken, so riders can't pay by card2021-07-09
- Card payments take 30-60 seconds to process at some stores2020-03-09
- Hard to tell when the card can be removed, so chip payment is slower than swiping2020-02-12
- Reader placed awkwardly behind counter or facing away, making payment hard to do2020-02-11
- Chip readers take over 5 seconds per transaction, too slow in the US2019-11-01
- Card payments slow checkout due to failed reads, PIN mistypes, and phone fiddling2019-03-07
- Credit option is hidden behind a cancel step, with no instructions, and each step is slow2019-03-02
- Card must be inserted and fail three times before swipe works2017-12-13
- Cannot pay at the pump because the card needs a US ZIP code the user lacks2017-09-28
- Many prompts in a row with 2-5 second delays between them2017-08-08
- Card payment takes 4-5 prompts and up to 30 seconds to complete2017-08-08
- Card payments involve waiting for the terminal, pointing, clicking and signing2017-07-15
- Chip card payments are slow and POS interfaces are confusing to use2017-06-26
- Too many prompts, slow terminals, and unresponsive buttons cause repeated presses2017-05-27
- Dirty chip or network interruption forces repeating the same payment actions for minutes2017-04-15
- Chip payments take up to a minute, with waiting and retrying after mistyped PINs2017-03-04
- Extra confirm-charges prompt after entering PIN, and accidental 'No' selections2017-03-04
- Chip card fails and customer must retry repeatedly while machine beeps2016-12-30
- Must press Cancel at PIN prompt to choose credit, confusing2016-12-27
- Chip and NFC payment takes longer, needs orientation guesses, and gives no clear tap feedback2016-10-05
- Many shops require PIN or signature, making payment slower than contactless2016-08-01
- Card payment requires many prompt steps to add tip and confirm, slowing transactions2016-07-27
- Terminals require swiping first, then insertion, with long waits and confusing 'swipe card' prompts2016-07-27
- Customers confused by inserting instead of swiping, causing slow, bad checkout experiences2016-07-25
- Working and broken chip slots look identical; working ones are slow and prompt-heavy2016-06-26
- Chip and PIN payment is a poor user experience for customers2016-06-18
- Screen text and beeps look alike, so users can't tell when to remove the card2016-06-17
- Customers swipe instead of insert, get errors, and must restart the payment steps repeatedly2016-06-17
- Must tap through several confusing screens every transaction, slowing checkout2016-06-17
- Card payments at stores are slow to register and complete2016-06-15
- Chip card readers are slow and multi-step, slower than paying with cash2016-06-15
- Chip slots are taped over or signed off-limits, and cashiers don't know how to process chip payments2016-05-02
- Chip card payments take 8-10 seconds at some stores2016-04-19
- Constant unnecessary prompts like donate and debit-or-credit confuse people paying with cards2016-04-19