I went today to pick up tickets for a weekend trip to Paris (for the PALMYR workshop). We’re going by train; if you make an internet booking, you go to the NS office and a machine prints your tickets for you. It’s a touchscreen system — here’s a shot of the moment when you enter your booking code:

NS ticket dispenser

That’s the genius of Dutch design on display, that is. Just try spelling your name on that, let alone a seven-letter random code! And what is that arrow doing? My suspicion is that they added it after focus-testing showed that people had difficulty understanding the system: “Perhaps it will help if we show them where the alphabet starts?”