Humans in the Design of Cash: The world’s most powerful currency doesn’t have the best design
Have you ever confused a five dollar note for $10? It’s an easy mistake to make if you live in the United States, because all American money is the same size and almost the same color. Australians don’t make this mistake, and it’s not because they are smarter.
American currency hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years. Sure, the Federal Reserve has added a lot of anti-counterfeiting features (weird gradients), and some ostensible accessibility features (giant numbers in Helvetica) but the changes have been minor increments rather than revolutionary changes. Each new little change seems to draw some criticism — mostly that the new bills look like Monopoly money — but people adapt and quickly forget the old versions.
For most of my life the look and feel of American money seemed pretty OK with me. It has a distinctive look, and even a distinctive smell. When I moved to Brisbane, I thought that the plastic Australian banknotes looked a little silly — they’re so bright and so busy, they looked even more like play money than a new American bill to me.
When I talked to Tristan about this, he answered bluntly that American money looks like play money to Australians. (Ed from Tristan: Actually I was more blunt that that…). Even more important than the aesthetics is usability to all and accessibility to citizens with disabilities. Listen to Blind Film Critic Tommy Edison explain how stupid it is for all American banknotes to feel the same:
Australia solves this problem by making banknotes’ physical size relative to their value. It’s easy to feel how much money is in your hand without having to watch the numbers. This is a great feature for people with vision problems, but it’s also better for sighted people. The notes seems to organize themselves in my wallet.
And, as you can see above, not only do Australian notes feel different they look different. The perception of Monopoly money came only from unfamiliarity — any currency would feel fake if I wasn’t used to it. The strong colors make the money easier to count — you can tell at a glance the value of a note, making every money handling event more efficient and less error prone. For example, when paying a cheque with friends at a restaurant it’s really clear how much money people are putting in, and it’s easy to sort and count. It’s hard to be a cheapskate in Australia.
Is Australian Cash better than American Cash in other ways?
The plastic feel that initially felt strange is actually a great feature because it makes the notes very durable. If, say, a $20 note falls on the floor of a mens room, it’s no problem to rinse it off in the sink because it’s made of plastic. It can go through the wash. It can be ironed. It doesn’t have that money smell, but it turns out that the smell of American money is the cumulative finger grease of everyone who has ever touched that one dollar bill.
Plastic also allows a number of anti-counterfeit measures. It’s nearly impossible to print on plastic from a home inkjet printer. Plus, it has a see-though window in the bottom corner and a shadow image that reveals itself when shown to light. These are features that can help anyone without professional equipment spot a counterfeit.
Is Australia an outlier?
Australia switched from printing pounds to dollars in 1966 and they made a big change to plastic notes with proportional sizes in 1988, but other countries have followed their lead. You can see this in the photo above I have from leftover currency from my recent trip to India where rupees aren’t just length proportional, but height, too. There’s no way you could confuse a 10 and 100 rupee note, and even illiterate users could distinguish between these notes despite the same portrait of Gandhi appearing on each denomination. Other countries even pay Australia to make their money for them — foreign currency is an export! Even the Euro followed Australia’s design lead.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
So why can’t America have nice currency?
People cite tradition and the expense of changing automatic banknote readers (see these Boing Boing comments) but I really think those arguments are unnecessarily recalcitrant. Australian vending machines and ATMs are superficially no different from their American counterparts. This is not the QWERTY keyboard.
If the Federal Reserve could redesign American banknotes from the ground up to be more accessible, they would be both better for users (blind and sighted alike) and they could include state-of-the-art anti-counterfeiting technology. And the truth is, accessibility isn’t just better for people with disabilities. It’s better for everyone.
-Tom
Although it’s the only currency I’ve had significant use of I do love our money. I love it because of it’s accessibility as noted (boom tish!) in this post and also because, given the colours, we have nick names such as lobster and pineapple for different notes.
Fuck yes.
Australian money is amazing.
ura faggit if ur readin this loool