It's awkward because people who are new to the city don't intuitively understand the necessary cadence of the swipe. Every time I bring a friend to the city for the first time and hand them a card, they struggle to get the machine to read their swipe. First, they swipe too slowly, I tell them to speed it up. They swipe again, too quickly this time, and I tell them to slow it down. They look at me, exasperated, and I take the card and swipe myself through to show them the rhythm. They usually mess it up one or two more times before they get it right.

Furthermore, I would argue that the cards are shaped incorrectly--the cut edge of the card is on the trailing edge of the swipe, which seems unintuitively for something meant to be pushed forwards.