New UK coins

This one comes from a friend, Jose Marconi who told me about the new coin designs. I've been so busy with the writing of my thesis that I haven't even noticed that the coins were changed...

There has been a lot of discussion about the new designs, most people moaning about it rather than liking it I'm afraid (see some comments here). Changing the currency always makes people assume a conservative posture. Believe me... I know... Brazil has changed currency many times and every single time the population moaned, shouted, protested but in the end accepted it. Come the time for a next currency change, people had grown so attached to the money (forgetting how much they hated it in the first place) that they were averse to changing it.

Back to the UK, on one side, the new coins depict the Royal Shield of Arms either in its whole (pound coin) or in part. On the other side, they show, as usual, the face of the Queen. Below there is a quote from the designer explaining the concept (for the full text click here).

"I thought the six coins could make up a shield by arranging the coins both horizontally, as with the landscape idea, as well as vertically, in a sort of jigsaw style. I liked the idea and symbolism of using the Royal Arms, where individually the coins could focus on specific elements and when placed together they reveal the complete Royal Arms.

I found the idea that members of the public could interact with the coins the most exciting aspect of this concept. It's easy to imagine the coins pushed around a school classroom table or fumbled around with on a bar - being pieced together as a jigsaw and just having fun with them."

The most controversial aspect about the new design seems to be the fact that there are no numbers stamped on the faces. The value of the coin is written (e.g. one, two, five, etc). Here is another picture of the coins in position showing the shield of arms.



Without taking any sides there are, however, some usability and design considerations which need to be taken into account:

1) The new designs are beautiful and a breath of fresh air, there's no doubt about it.
2) The fact that the currency does not have the numbers is a problem. Who ever been abroad has experienced how confusing it can be to use a foreign currency. Now imagine that foreign money with no numbers on it!!

Oh, one may say, 'Bloody foreigners...they should learn english or not come to this country!'. Well, we have to remember that last year alone, tourism brought 86.5 billion pounds into the UK economy!! Spending that much money here, I think tourists shold be considered more thoughtfully on this.

Another may say: 'Well there are still the shapes and colours to guide them, they'll learn'. I do agree that design conventions sometimes have to be broken for innovation to occur. Yes, people struggle a bit initially and then the innovative design becomes the new convention. This process, however, takes some time and remember that tourists do not hang around long enough to transform innovation into new conventions.

3) Why have the words and not the numbers instead? If there was room for the words, certainly there was room for the numbers! Quick check: 'How many of you can read the words 'five pence' in a 5p coin?

Again, one may say:'Well, the pound coin has words and no numbers on it' I ask: 'How many of you know that the words 'one pound' are stamped in the £1 coin?'

Most people eventually learn that that coin which is thicker than the others and sort of golden in colour is worth one pound. But remember that a tourist that only had one (quite distinctive) coin to learn, now has to learn that one and 6 (not so distinctive) coins.

4) Let's be honest...jigzaw puzzle? Who is going to play with that? Kids? What are the odds of kids having one of each coin totaling £1.88 in their pockets. People want to use money to buy things and not to play around.

All in all, as I said before, I think the new design is a breath of fresh air...not the most usable of design of all. People will eventually learn the new conventions and will use the coins automatically. Tourists? Well they will have problems...but they won't probably be life threatening. Who knows? maybe someone will come to senses and put the numbers back in...