'The Joy of Cheques' Press Release

Description

This press release was coordinated by the Newcastle University press office and described our Anoto Pen cheque writing demo and how it had been co-designed with 80 year olds. The 'news' was that a paper was to be presented at the CSCW conference in Seattle. The press release starts as follows: An electronic cheque which eliminates the need for costly processing by banks but preserves the simplicity and ease of a traditional cheque book has been designed by a team of academics in the UK. Drawing on the life experience and concerns of a group of 80 year olds in the Newcastle area, the team from York, Newcastle and Northumbria universities have come up with a novel way of making quick and easy electronic transfers that preserves the value of a paper cheque as something physical to be handed to the recipient. The system uses a cheque book identical to those currently issued by banks except for the greyish background on each cheque which is in fact billions of tiny dots laid out in a specific pattern. Using widely available digital pens – the account holder writes the cheque and as they do so a camera in the pen tracks the position on the paper, ‘reading’ the cheque as it’s written. Once complete, you tick a box – the only difference to a normal cheque – and the information is transmitted directly to the payee’s bank account. The research entitled “The Joy of Cheques” is being presented today at the CSCW conference in Seattle. The messages we wanted to get over were: 1.this is a working prototype and how it works 2.one can initiate an electronic transaction with an everyday object like a pen, you don't need a PC, a laptop or smart phone 3.it was co-designed with the help of 80 year olds 4.cheques are still at risk of being withdrawn 5.cheques have valuable practical properties, particularly for the older generation, that are replicated in this design 6.people over 80 have interesting things to say that should be listened to by designers and policy makers Most articles focussed on 1 - 3. 4 and 5 got some coverage. National coverage included: The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Engineer, The Times Higher and Sky News. An interview for Radio 4 'In Business' was recorded for transmission in April. The story was also picked up by Express India and the Times of India. It was also picked up by numerous local papers and we gave several live interviews to local radio stations. Our intention in producing 'Provocative Prototypes' by co-design with 80 year olds was to communicate what they want from payment technologies. Our previous experience was that an invention that solves a problem, even though it might have obvious flaws, communicates a need much more eloquently than negative accounts of how existing poor design excludes some users. This was born out with this invention which generated a lot of interest from the public via this press release. Interestingly, the press coverage also stimulated enquiries from high street banks and we are currently in discussion with two banks that have expressed an interest in providing a service of this kind for their customers. Following the success of this press release, we are about to issue another based around the idea of a delegation card. This highlights an important social problem, making payments or getting cash when you are housebound, and we hope to get an equal amount of coverage.

Period	13 Feb 2012
Event title	Proc. CSCW 2012, to be presented in CSCW, Seattle, USA,
Event type	Conference
Location	United KingdomShow on map