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'It hasn't delivered': The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology (www.bbc.com)

submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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'It hasn't delivered': The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology::Unstaffed tills were supposed to revolutionise shopping. Now, both retailers and customers are bagging many self-checkout kiosks.

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[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Ah yes, typical technical folk, blame the user for bad design.

If your target audience can't use what you've designed, it's the fault of the designer, not the user.

I say this as having been in IT for 30+ years now. This argument is always presented by juniors, because their design "couldn't possibly be wrong, the users are just doing it wrong".

UI needs to be intuitive and obvious. Don't blame the user if you failed at this.

Edit: Hahahaha the downvotes! Please, send me your resumes, so we know who not to hire! Hahahahaja

[–] lovesickoyster@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Like I said, the same self-checkout machines work wonderfully in switzerland. 🤷‍♂️

[–] knotthatone@lemmy.one 4 points 10 months ago

You're not wrong, but it's not just the UI on the kiosk, it's the whole checkout process. A trained cashier on a real checkout line is much faster because the machine isn't nerfed and trying to hold their hand while preventing them from stealing. The real problem is the stores are trying to shift the labor onto the customer but the customer isn't getting much benefit for the effort nor has any motivation to be particularly honest in light of having this chore thrown in their lap.

I don't think they can redesign the UI to overcome that. It's not really a UI problem, it's a conflict of interests problem and they're not going to solve that unless they completely redesign the checkout process. The little Amazon convenience stores that know what you have as you shop seem like a better approach, but I'm guessing they're not all they're cracked up to be since they haven't seemed to catch on that much.

[–] SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo 4 points 10 months ago

There are many people who can’t grasp anything technology related. I’ve seen people tapping a can against the scanner instead of scanning the barcode and getting mad it didn’t work. UIs on most self checkouts these days are the same with different branding and they work well.

It is impossible to make something everyone can use when people let their brains shut off any time they have to use a machine.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I don't know why you are being downvoted, must be a bunch of people wanting to defend a shitty UI.

Because you're right, a self checkout shouldn't require technical knowledge to use.