Visit Japan and you’ll hear ATMs play a little tune as they hand you money. The sound design everywhere you go is amazingly and thoughtful. America can be way too brutalist.

Sound design in Asia in general is amazing. I remember the sound when the metro arrives in Taiwan (both Taipei and Kaohsiung)being both really fun and effective at informing you. What really impressed me is how even the garbage trucks sing a little lullaby when they pick up the garbage at night.

It is sad we don't pay as much attention to this in Europe and America and usually just go for loud beeps. Sounds can be functional and pleasant at the same time.

The Zojirushi rice cookers also play you a song after they are done making you rice.

If we could only get them to work with microwave makers (or recently inductive "portable" single heating plates) in the US/Europe. New microwaves are IMHO the worst, why does every microwave seem to have a different UX? I often end up just picking the least-button-pressing method in lieu of recommended temp/time settings to avoid diving into multiple sub-menus. Am I the only one who can't stand those beeps? The finished repeated triple-beeps are the jarring cherry on top.

My Samsung washing machine plays a little ditty when a wash cycle completes. It's actually kind of annoying! :D

Samsung is Korean.

I'd love to find these, as I'm in Japan and the only ATMs I've used angrily yell at me with a loud "ERRR ERRR ERRR" sound.

It comes off more like "Get your money and get the hell out" than a pleasant tune.

Not sure what to tell you. That’s not my (limited) experience. Certainly you’ve heard the sound design elsewhere — from trains boarding and leaving, to the sound of rice makers and dish washers letting you know they’re ready.

I'd be happy if the text didn't change until it was done. Many of the machines I encounter change the "Wait, don't remove card" text location three or four times, each time you think it is done.

The problem is the text "Don't remove the card" contains the phrase "remove the card". I wish they just used a positive statement like "Keep card inserted" instead, and then changed to "Remove card".

Just another one of those minor accessibility things that would be dead simple to fix if the people in charge gave a shit about usability.

Yep. Or "processing" -> "complete"/"declined"

On the other side, many of the machines I use don't even change the text at all: it just keeps saying "leave card inserted" and the cashier tells me "just remove your card... it's long done".

Some places have done this. E.g. Safeway/Vons/Pavilions vs. Trader Joe's, one of them has a neutral sound, the other has that error-sounding notification.

I believe the latter is the generic notification sound and vendors who customized their solutions post-chip swapped it. I just can't remember which is which right now.

I really like the happy noise the credit card machine at my Safeway makes. :)

I always thought the angry noise was so you didn't leave your card behind.

In the UK nearly every Contactless transaction just does a single beep on success, and something else for a failure.

This is dependent on the machine reading the card, not the card, or technology, itself. This horrid noise is not present on machines used by many vendors..

While I agree, most people don't take their receipts so that idea would probably never work.