> Yet that's largely been cured. The vending industry has matured and such problems are reported to be largely extinct.
I beg to differ! Just last year, I was at the platform for Gleis 11 at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof trying to buy a drink at the vending machine. After waiting in vain for the VISA transaction to go through, I cut my losses and caught my train with only a few seconds to spare. I never did get my bottle of Fanta, and it's still on my to-do list to find out if the amount was actually charged or not.
In those brief moments between observing that the machine wasn't working and running for the train, I surmised that the vending machine's payment terminal was running some version of Android, probably 4.4 or 5.0 judging by the GUI, and had lost its Wi-Fi connection. That's rather sloppy UX in my opinion, and I've made a point of using the (somewhat) more reliable cash vending machines instead (human-staffed counters are even better!)
I beg to differ! Just last year, I was at the platform for Gleis 11 at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof trying to buy a drink at the vending machine. After waiting in vain for the VISA transaction to go through, I cut my losses and caught my train with only a few seconds to spare. I never did get my bottle of Fanta, and it's still on my to-do list to find out if the amount was actually charged or not.
In those brief moments between observing that the machine wasn't working and running for the train, I surmised that the vending machine's payment terminal was running some version of Android, probably 4.4 or 5.0 judging by the GUI, and had lost its Wi-Fi connection. That's rather sloppy UX in my opinion, and I've made a point of using the (somewhat) more reliable cash vending machines instead (human-staffed counters are even better!)