WEIRD title, but those are the 4 words that were raging through my mind the other evening as I tried to load a sum of money on to my new Prepaid VISA Canvas card.

CAPTION: No squinting… the above card is not mine.

For those of you who do not know what a “Canvas card” is, it is a prepaid VISA card of which you can “load” with real money to use as a credit card online, or anywhere where VISA is accepted.

You can “load” it with funds at participating ePay locations, of which seem to be (within my local area) a select few service stations and video rental stores.

It has a target market for the demographic of those of whom are under the age of 18 of who can not apply for a credit card, and are ineligible for a VISA Debit card.

It’s predecessor and previous competition BOPO, a subsidiary of Bill Express, was also aimed strongly at the younger market, though it has gone in to administration, owing many companies millions of dollars

Having such a card has the advantage of not having credit, of which some kids might think “sucks” but really, it is an advantage especially if you are a parent and do not want to end up being a guarantor with a nice lovely debt.

With myself turning 18 not too long ago, and still not wanting a credit card, I applied for a VISA Debit card through my bank, but before I did, I also got one of these CANVAS cards as well.

I thought it would be handy, since I was using its predecessor BOPO before, and needed a VISA card quick smart so I could pay for many my existing bills online.

Now you are probably wondering how all of this relates back to Technology, Hassle, Adaption and The Incompetent.

Basically it goes like this:

I went to one of my local Matilda fuel stations of which the CANVAS site suggested I go to “load” the card:

The last one of which was “Matilda Currimundi” I chose as the closest location to go to.

So I hoped in my car, drove there and explained to the store attendant what I had:

1. A CANVAS card

2. How I wanted to use the ePay facilities to load money from my EFTPOS savings account.

3. Explained how this was a store on the official site suggesting that this was a place to do the load.

The response was as I expected: “Um, I don’t know what that thing is, but I’ll give my boss a call”.

After stepping aside and letting him communicate with his boss (of whom did not really want to talk), the attendant came to the solution of “sorry we don’t accept it”.

Well that’s just great I thought to myself, 3 down (of which were open) and 2 to go.

Through this painful process, I remembered and kept in mind that I had to go through the same thing when I was using the my previous prepaid credit card.

It got me thinking.

It seems that documentation is sent out via snail mail or FAX, but of course the shop attendant and manager never reads or passes on such information to staff.

They accept all this technology, and expect it to work hassle free.

So after this first fail, I thought I would work my way up the list to Video Ezy, of which just so happened to be located next door to Matilda, how convenient I thought… They’ve spread these limited amounts of ePay locations out soooo well.

Guess what?

A resounding “No” from them, right off of the bat, they did not even know how to use their ePay system, and were not even the slightest bit interested in helping nor trying to “load” my card.

I asked them: “Have you ever had to do any ePay’s at all?” with the response of “No”, from both of the shop attendants.

So I thought, well time to try the last and final one on the list, of which was Matilda in Caloundra.

Now it was a bit more of a drive, so I got out my iPhone, opened the Google app up, searched for Matilda Caloundra and called them to see if they would at least give this a shot.

With some bargaining and the hassle of a phone conversation I managed to get a “I’ll give it a go”.

End-users are scared of technology, the way its designed, the way we program it the way it looks combined with the way they are ‘forced’ to use it.

When it came to the stage of “Yes or No, Do you wish to load this card with $X” it scared the shop attendant, as he was unsure if he wanted to click yes, as he had not taken my money yet, and was unsure if he could even do so at all.

In the end after about 15 minutes, the shop attendant and I got the sum of money requested on to the card and everything was fine.

Just getting to that, was the hard part.

Image source: Emergence Marketing

Technology, end users & no training = a disaster.

‘People’ are scared of anything to do with Technology, some do not even want to learn it at all to the point where they will say “No”.

We need (the community of geeks) to develop more intuitive software, make life easier for the end user, and not just focus on business models.

There are no straight down the line standards with Technology, and this is what can make it difficult for an end user, understandably.

What is the solution?

Personally, I do not know, but I can see end users turning on Technology if it begins to become too complicated.

- Ben