photo booth

  I was in the Birmingham University Guild of Students (BUGS) today and, remembering that I needed to renew my passport, decided to pay a visit to the photo booth for some photos. I sat down, and a loud voice declared to the whole corridoor that I could now select the language I prefered. Feeling a little unhappy at the privacy of the curtain being so starkly contrasted by the boisterous american voice declaring my presence to random passers by, I decided to select French as my language of choice, as I am bilingual, and less people walking by are likely to understand French than English. I felt uneasy at this point, and wanting to get the experience over with as soon as possible, I didn't think carefully enough at the selection screen. Wanting to bypass the option to have wonderful borders on my photos, I pressed a plain photo. Three photos were taken, and I chose my favourite. It didn't give me any kind of preview of what the print would look like; it simply told me to wait outside, which I did. The result was one large photo of me. Knowing all too well that this was not what was required for a passport renewal, I not only had to pay another £3, but had to go through the whole experience again, this time spending more time ignoring the horrible voice whist looking for the correct option. I admit that this was quite largely user fault, although what caused my lack of attention to the instructions is quite apparent. My question is why oh why was there no preview of what it was about to print? It would not have cost them anything to bring a sample up on the screen, or even to make the whole selection process come after the photos have been taken so that you can see more tagibly what will come out. And where an earth was the mute button?