In one of the biggest commitments to date by a banking company to make its automated teller machines accessible to blind people, Citigroup Inc. pledged Tuesday to put a talking ATM in each of its 370 U.S. Citibank branches and ATM centers over the next 16 months.
The National Federation of the Blind, which represents more than 11 million visually impaired Americans, has been using lawsuits and other means to prod banks into making these specially equipped machines. Banks should be required to maintain at least one voice-guided machine at every location where there are ATMs, as Citibank will be doing, the group said. Bank of America Corp., Bank One Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. are among the other banks that have pledged to deploy these ATMs broadly.
The current federal guidelines for ATM accessibility are vague, and bankers have been trying to figure out how much they need to do to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The National Federal of the Blind has proposed more specific language, and the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, an independent federal agency that issues ADA compliance guidelines, has suggested some technical specifications and requirements for voice-enabled ATMs.
Citibank, which already had five talking ATMs in California, said Tuesday it had installed five new machines in branches in New York. The ATMs deliver audible information privately through an earphone, and guide people through transactions.
Bank officials said the New York ATMs which they say are an improvement on the pilot ones in California, and use software developed by Citibank will be used in the rest of the country.
About 20% of Citibanks U.S. locations will get a talking ATM by yearend, and the remaining 80% will get one by October 2002, according to Wayne Malone, vice president for distribution management for Citibank North America.
The talking ATMs have the same touch screens as other Citibank machines, plus Braille indicators at the bottom that instruct customers where to put their fingers on the touch screen.
Mr. Malone would not say how much it cost the company to install the talking machines, which he says is part of the overall upgrade of its entire ATM network. These are the same screens that we all know and love.
Curtis Chong, director of technology at National Federation of the Blind, which based in Baltimore, said he welcomed Citibanks commitment, but he was disappointed that the machines used touch screens instead of keypads.
Most blind people would prefer to have real buttons and real keys that can be touched and felt, he said. Theres tactile verification that you did push a button. It is my educated guess a lot of blind people will find the touch screen very frustrating to operate.
Mr. Malone said touch screens give the bank more flexibility than keypads. Its much easier to make changes to the screen design and possibly put more buttons on that screen.
Steven B. Mendelsohn, a New York attorney and an advocate for the blind, agreed with Mr. Chong that keypads are preferable to touch screens, but most banks are moving to touch screens, and to require those institutions at this point to design a whole separate machine for blind people is unrealistic.
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