Comments on: UI Design – Pet Peeve

By: Carl Turner

Carl Turner — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:22:12 +0000

It’s uncommon for a digit that has been entered to be “dropped” by the system, but it’s fairly common for people to skip numbers in a sequence of digits that long. Entering the pound key (or hash key) is the user’s way of saying “I think I’m done.” Without the pound key the user must wait the length of the timout for a response (typically 5 seconds).

Yes, 16 digits is pretty long for a user ID, but 16 digits is a typical length for a credit card number.

I blog on speech and touchtone IVR design on my website triangleinnovation.blogspot.com.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:34:04 +0000

John and Anon,
Point taken but there are plenty of examples of systems that count the digits you are entering and don’t require the # sign.

More directly to the time issue, by requiring the pound sign the system is increasing the amount of time required on the call, not decreasing it, for most calls.

By: Paul Sweeney

Paul Sweeney — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:49:58 +0000

Maybe the point here is that there has to be a better way of signing into these IVR systems, that actually does not require you to have a 17 digit code?

By: John Worrell

John Worrell — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:25:11 +0000

By entering a pound sign, the user has let the software know that he/she is finished entering data. To your other commenter’s point, every second counts in an IVR to both the user and the IVR owner, who is likely paying by the second for the 800# call you are on at the time. There are other reasons, but in IVR systems one has to program the number of digits to accept and the amount of time to wait for entry. The hash signifies a completed entry.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:48:52 +0000

I think there are two reasons:

1. I suspect the most common failure mode for this process is that exactly one character (other than the pound sign) fails to be recognized, due to, say, line noise or user error. In such cases, requiring a pound sign to terminate entry eliminates a timeout that would be likely be frustrating or puzzling for the user. I suspect that such occurrences actually happen with non-trivial frequency, and that this measure therefore reduces a non-trivial amount of frustration.

2. If the user makes an error and is aware of it (perhaps another likely case), the pound sign provides the user with a convenient means to exit the entry process early to start over.

Cheers..