Metro Card Vending Machine Formalism Essay

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Finally, if the user wants a receipt, this bar changes to red, with an arrow pointing down towards where the receipt will be dispersed.

To the right of the black square containing the touchscreen there is a green portion featuring a coin and bill slot along with text listing all of the denominations accepted by the machine. To the lower-right of that is a small yellow area where MetroCards are dispersed (and where old MetroCard may be traded in). Below the screen a blue area features a slot for credit and debit cards alongside a keypad and icons listing all of the accepted cards. The lower portion of the blue credit area and the yellow fare card area slant forward, so that their lower edges once again meet the foremost plane of the machine. Immediately below this, centered in the middle of the machine, is a red area where change and receipts are dispersed.

More than anything else, the formal elements of the machine act as an invitation. The rounded edges on everything from the touchscreen buttons to the casing itself serve to soften any sharp lines, thus inviting the user by suggesting a level of tactile safety; though clearly a heavy, steel machine, the rounded edges serve to give the MetroCard machine an almost cartoon-like character, so that the viewer cannot help but have the impression that it is somehow friendly, despite its inanimate nature. The recessed portion of the machine, though a common feature of vending machines and ATMs, is worth mentioning because it further invites the user into a space partially segmented from the larger area of the station, thus allowing the interaction to feel personal and comfortable.

This impression is only heightened by the particular choice of a few bright, primary colors used consistently throughout the design, because the colors serve to mark the machine as the site of an almost playful interaction, transforming the act of purchasing a fare card into an amusing dialogue between humans and machines.

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That these colors are repeated on the face of the machine and in the touchscreen menus demonstrates a continuity that not only helps to keep the object simple and thus inviting, but also serves to convey extra emphasis not present in the text by associating certain colors with certain actions. For instance, on the outside green is used to indicate where physical money may be inserted, and in the menu, green is used to inform the user that it is time to pay. Similarly, in the menu red is used to stop the transaction, and on the outside red is used to mark the area of the machine that the user engages with last, at the cessation of the interaction. The step right before this (taking the newly purchased MetroCard) is marked by yellow, thus subtly incorporating the "green-yellow-red" sequence from a streetlight into this alternate mode of transit.

The MetroCard Vending Machines used in New York City subways and featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York combines the use of rounded shapes and bright, primary colors to engage the viewer, using its formal properties to transform a largely impersonal, economic process into an intimate, personal exchange between human and machine. While these formal characteristics serve to support its functional and contextual purpose as a subway vending machine, they nonetheless are powerful enough to engage the viewer even outside of this functional context, such that the MetroCard Vending Machine does not even seem out of place in an art museum......

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