Account numbers — as difficult as possible, yes!

At this point in the computer age, you’d think certain basic conventions regarding account numbers would have been established. For example:

1. Why aren’t more account numbers presented in manageable form — e.g., in groups of four digits, like credit card numbers? That’s a reasonable approach, easy to deal with, and certainly could simplify things when reading account numbers, and especially when providing such numbers orally (see below). So why don’t more organizations divide their numbers this way, at least in what consumers see? Of course, an entity’s computer sytem might group numbers quite differently internally, but why can’t such a human-oriented approach be utilized when feasible, in printing numbers for humans to deal with? Obviously this wouldn’t apply to certain numbers — phone numbers, social security numbers — that already have traditional and manageable groupings. But what about all those other account numbers, so often absurdly long and/or confusingly grouped? More than four or five digits in a row is obviously hard for the eye to sort out. It’s a small irritation, but a frequent, needless and fixable one — and therefore, rather stupidly inconsiderate, no?

2. Since we’ve all been dealing with many numbers for well over half a century now, wouldn’t you think that a convention would have arisen in which, when supplying a number orally — especially on the phone — you would start by saying “In groups of four, it’s–” and then continue with the digits thus grouped (until you explain that you’re giving a final single digit, or two or three). Just wondering.

3. Banks and other check-printing organizations offer an absurd array of design choices to “personalize” your checks (as though that really asserts your individuality). Meanwhile, it has not occurred to even one of such organizations – at least, that I’ve seen — to include a series of small boxes to facilitate the writing and reading of the account number to which a payment should be credited (that is, your account with the utility, credit card company, and so on). Such a line of boxes might fit at the top, above the payor’s name; or perhaps below the line ending with the word “dollars.” In any case, this design feature would obviously promote clarity and tend to prevent payment errors. (Of course, if groups-of-four, as suggested above, ever became an accepted convention, the boxes might be similarly grouped.) You’d think this option is even more important than the chance to include pictures of Labrador retrievers, sailboats, or Disney characters. Why haven’t they taken care of this?