Yet Another Bad Interface

On one of my recent visits to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, I noticed that there were electronic gates like the ones we see at the train stations to restrict the number of visitors during visiting hours. Each patient is restricted to at most 4 visitors. Hence, in order to ensure that only a maximum of 4 visitors are at the patient's ward, the visitors have to first register manually using a touch screen interface computer.

Problems
The user will first have to scan their NRIC using the bar code scanner. Being a user myself, I noticed many people were having trouble scanning their NRIC. Firstly, it was not clear how and where we should position our identity cards under the scanner. Although there was a picture indicating how it should be done, the majority of first timers still failed the NRIC scanning process.

Next, the user has to input the ward number, bed number and patient's name. This was done using a touch screen keyboard on the screen as seen below:

The 3 input fields were clear and concise, it even has examples by the side of the text field. However, the main problem here is the keyboard. Notice that it is not the normal keyboard that we usually use at home. This touch screen keyboard is arranged in alphabetical order. My family and I had trouble typing the patient's name into the text field. Coupled with the scanning problems, the time taken to register was simply not ideal. Imagine if one user stays at the machine for so long, there would be unwanted long queues just to register.

Thoughts & Reflections
I was amazed that even hospitals are starting to use technology to tackle their problems. However, more can be done to improve the current human computer interface. The scanning problem can be improved by playing a short video clip of the process of scanning the NRIC. The touch screen keyboard just has to be replaced by the normal keyboard most people are using.

When I was in the ward, I noticed there is another touch screen interface right next to the patient's bed. As it is for the nurse or doctor to use, I had no idea what it was for. However, something caught my eye. It was the keyboard on the screen. It was completely different from the one I saw earlier on, as seen below:

The first thing that came to my mind was, where is the consistency? It makes no sense to have a certain keyboard for one machine, and to have a different keyboard on another machine, in the same hospital. Perhaps they were different machines made by different companies? Perhaps the hospital feels that visitors who does not use computers will find it easier to key in the names with a keyboard made in alphabetical order? The list of questions goes on and on..