The Picard ManeuverLearning on the job
SurfinBirdHave you seen the couple that both get out of the car at the gas station and have to collaborate way too much to work the pumps?
Something Burger đHow do these people function in society? The machine is extremely simple to use. Insert card, type code, remove card, pick gas type.
Tourists from New Jersey or Oregon.
Luckily us Oregonians can legally pump our own gas now
Yeah, I only do that when my kid wants to âhelp,â and that usually means messing with the squeegee/sponge thing.
Not only the self checkout. I usually end up behind someone whoâs new to the concept of exchanging goods for legal tender and needs an introduction to it.
This is of course after they have told the story about why theyâre in the store, starting with the new testament and moving on from thereâŚ
I spend a lot of time thinking about how itâs not my place to judge these people, but I think very few of them would manage to sit the right way on the toilet without outside assistance.
socsaPeople on their cell phone who act surprised and annoyed that the act of checking out requires a brief moment of their attention.
CrazyHorseAt every checkout you pay twice. Attention and money. If youâre doing it correctly.
âCan I go ahead of you in line? My kid is acting up. Great thanks. (To cashier) Iâd like to buy this alcohol and cigarettes with these food stamps that I acquired totally legally. No? Letâs take several minutes to discuss if thereâs any way around the law. Now that thatâs over, Iâll pay with a check. Oh, also, can I get 20 scratch off tickets? I just want to scratch them off while you wait. Here, I have a giant roll of cash that I will use, but donât worry, I wasnât doing this to make things go faster. Now is my chance to try to do a cash-changing scam on you.â
thatâs why one line for multiple checkouts is better
[deleted] in lemmyWhere I live the grocery stores all have groups of 6+ self checkouts that are reliable enough that only one or two might be out at the same time but generally work, all of the âtoo many itemsâ issues have been sorted out, and they are in places where people just naturally form lines and take the next free one. It works great and is so much better than checkout lines ever were as one person going slow doesnât hold up everyone else.
Went on a work trip to a larger city and holy hell I understand why people there would hate self checkout. Forced lines, machines that constantly required human assistance, etc. That would suck to interact with regularly.
Yeah, self-chekout in the 'burbs is fantastic, we have like 4-8 machines and most of the time, at least half are available.
M137I have the same experience as you and live in a big city, I guess it depends on what country and how up-to-date the hardware is, it used to be like you said but the past 5 years itâs been great and I always use it.
Is it not the standard? Every store with self-checkout Iâve been to has a single line for all machines. Iâve even seen some stores with a single line for regular checkout.
well, not in Jordanâs hood
Not standard here, but itâs a mix. Same applies to other checkouts: so many people are doing the devil may know what, Iâm terrible at picking the fastest queue.
AsidonhopoSelf check at Samâs Club at other club stores works in a one line per checkout way, where I am at least
Yes but itâs 100x faster to use the âScan-n-goâ on your phone anyways.
Scan shit with your phone camera as you put it in the cart. When done click checkout, pay on phone. Then just walk out. Occasionally someone will ask to check yer cart.
jumping redditor [they/them]seems weird to use an app for a physical store
Yes it does but avoiding the madhouse seems worth it. Lines at my Samâs are always 20+ minutes long
Costco started doing that except itâs them doing it while youâre in line. Like Chik-fil-A. Big brain.
Lines were already speedy, considering.
Some places itâs unclear, like Loweâs home improvement stores. Most people there sort of gravitate to a one-line-for-all-kiosks arrangement but thereâs often one douchebag who think everybody else is standing there for no reason and cuts in.
I think that's just called stealing
There are an unusual number of people in this world who gawk at the self-checkout as if they found themselves at the controls of an alien spaceship.
If every self checkout was similar to others, but each of them want to make things different.
Different and worse. How do designers keep seeing other checkout system and think: "You know, I think I see a way that we could make this process slower and more complicated...."
I donât understand why the card reader and the screen are separate units, just combine them like those Square kiosk things that counter order places have.
Security is a big reason to never combine payment processing and user (the store) defined ui.
Could you clarify? Because Iâm pretty sure thatâs not a thing.
stripe recommends it for card reader to smartphone at least, and it looks like home depot is an example of why it should be done between the card reader and the pos.
I get the phone thing, because phones are relatively insecure devices, but they could have functionally separate systems in one box.
The main problem Iâm trying to solve is the weird UX where I need to select a payment method even after paying on the payment device. If it was designed as a complete set instead of separate units, I think theyâd fix that.
Because at the scale these stores work at. Itâs cheaper to have different units you can replace, repair and upgrade at different intervals as needed.
Well for starters because their job title is designer.
If they just copy and pasted it would be âWhat are we paying you forâ
See every single UI/UX change on a modern operating system, or website in the past 30 years.
Trust me itâs not the designers choosing to do it this way. Thereâs management above them saying âhey this other company makes them put in their phone numbers, it must be for SOMETHING, we should tooâ
CatoblepasThis is doubly true for the card payment terminals. The on screen options are all in different places, orders, and with random questions thrown in. Whatâs your phone number? Do you want to round up to donate a car to starving kittens? Whatâs your zip code? Debit or credit?
Also, because this system is apparently developed by a maniac: where I live (might be national and not state level, not sure) EBT cards have to be used by swiping, not the chip that comes on the card. But to swipe, first you have to use the chip and let that fail. So if you see someone using an EBT card that looks like they have no fucking clue how to use a card, itâs probably that theyâre actually using it the only way they can. Absolutely insane choice, especially for people who may already be facing delays like separating items into two separate transactions for non-covered items, having to remove items that seem like they should be covered but arenât, etc.
why would a store need a zip code?
Sales metrics, I guess. Ikea always asks for it when you check out, and I remember having to ask people when I worked at a retail clothes store untold ages ago.
wow, I guess it has been about a decade since I was at an IKEA l
MintyFreshOh man! Iâm a city bus driver, and the amount of people that struggle with getting fare in the box is too damn high! I donât understand how you could make a bus full of people wait for you to dig through your pockets at a pace that would make glaciers impatient. Youâre standing at the bus stop, you know youâre getting on the bus, know youâll need fare, yet here we are.
I want to get a documentary crew to follow some of these people around for a while just to see what they do with their days. I genuinely wonder how some people function.
lime!here buses havenât taken cash for like 15 years. card or pre-bought tickets only.
Must be nice. Weâve got cards, but a sizable population still uses cash
I was stoked when they introduced fare cards in my area because:
- discount on fare
- easier than cash
- they supported credit card tap at the same time
- easy to reload and freeze online
I bought three, one for me, my SO, and my oldest kid (wasnât free anymore), and if I misplaced one, Iâd just freeze it and move the balance to a different one until it turned up. Iâd lend one to family so they could take transit to the airport after visiting us and then return it when they came back (Iâd be fine if they lost it).
Fare cards rock, I honestly donât understand why they werenât very popular.
They since removed the discount, so the value of the pass is a bit less, but we still use it occasionally since itâs less bad to lose the card than a credit card.
ZagorathDoes your area still use cash for bus fares? In 2025? Where I am it feels like weâre behind because only this year did they start letting you tap on with your debit card or phone. Weâve had transit cards since like 2007.
Weâve got transit cards, but some people still insist on cash. To be fair the same people that struggle finding coins are the same people who struggle finding a fare card. Or will try to sit in the entryway of the bus, fire up the app, and buy a ticket, then activate said ticket, then struggle to scan said ticket.
if the bus doesnât take cash how in the world would tourists be able to use it?
I got an Octopus card when I went to Hong Kong. I got an Oyster card in London. I got an Opal card in Sydney. Itâs really not hard to get the appropriate public transport card for the place that youâre at.
Plus, as I mentioned, many places are now moving towards being able to just use your normal debit card, phone, or smartwatch to tap on and off.
if the bus doesnât take cash how in the world would tourists be able to use it?
Why would tourists be more inclined to use cash?
Because sometimes the dam credit card companies freeze your account when you travel and having the affordable transit option rely on having a functional credit card screw you over when you want to go to the bank to fix the issue. Also minors donât typically have cards nor asylum seekers. not to mention that cards rely on connection to cellular networks that fail an unreasonable amount
Because sometimes the dam credit card companies freeze your account when you travel
Not really. Just buy something at the airport.
Also minors donât typically have cards
Not true, not in the UK anyway. And minors young enough to not have cards donât travel alone.
nor asylum seekers.
Firstly, not true. Secondly, you said âtouristsâ.
đ˛đđđđđđťđŻđ (he/him)some people just living life on hard mode.
Yup, I rode the bus a lot for a few years, and the first time I went, I checked what the fare was and made sure I was ready, and even on the 100th time, I still kept my fare in hand before getting on. I honestly donât understand why you wouldnât, surely you want to get where youâre going instead of digging through your pockets in front of the driverâŚ
Burn down the self chechouts
Hell no. Theyâre a godsend. Donât have to interact with people and I get out of the store in way less time. And you donât have a person standing behind you waiting for you to pack your shit.
If they made some system where you could buy booze with some sort of pre-authentication tied to whatever that approved you then thatâd be perfect
Honestly self checkout is the bare minimum for me these days. One of the two duopoly supermarkets in Australia rolled out âscan and goâ where you can scan it with an app on your phone and pay on your phone and just walk out (with the occasional random inspection to deter theft) and it was such a huge improvement over even regular self checkout. I was gutted when they announced that option was being deprecated due to low uptake.
S-chain in Finland has that but with a device of their own. Rimi in Baltics has the scan and go through app, it was really nice to use.
has that but with a device of their own
Yeah I first learnt about this type of thing with this video about a similar thing in the Netherlands, which they got 3 or 4 years before we got the app version here in Australia.
And apparently part of the reason theyâre deprecating it is that theyâre switching from an app version to a âdevice of their ownâ versionâŚexcept unlike the handheld device shown in that video, itâs a big tablet that theyâll have built into some shopping trolleys. So no luck if youâre doing a quick small shop with a handheld basket, or even just carrying it in your arms.
Why Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam
You must not buy a lot of produce, gift cards or otc medicine; the self checkout is slower every time I have to buy any of these things and itâs given some companies (cvs, Walgreens) a reason to make their employees who would otherwise be working the register do other things and leave the front of the store almost completely unstaffed every time I go in there. Now I have to use a self checkout to buy something I know they need a person there for and then stand around like an idiot waiting for the cashier to come and assist.
If itâs a grocery store and I have even a moderate amount of produce, I donât have the codes memorized and thereâs no bar codes on it, so I have to find everything Iâm buying on their checkout machine. Something else inevitably doesnât scan or the bagging area detector freaks out about something and then I have to completely stop what Iâm doing and wait for an employee to come and scan their card.
It has made it a lot easier to steal things though and with the terrible experience that comes with these things, Iâm not far from doing.
Produce I buy a lot and itâs pretty quick to do them, put on the scale, find the item, press the button, done. Not much different to how you would weight them, press the button, put on the sticker and then get it scanned/scan it. Sometimes I have a brainfreeze trying to find where the produce is on the menu but I also have brainfreezes about the scale number so evens out.
Gift cards and medicine, no I donât think Iâve ever bought either from a store. Gift card maybe but it was before the machines.
Oh, I guess our produce checkout system is different; that definitely seems like more of a 1:1. For the grocery stores in my area, we just bag up what we want and the cashier puts in the code and weighs it up at checkout time. Itâs much faster for them to do it since they usually have the codes memorized or at least know where it is on their cheat sheet.
Here you normally weigh it yourself. Thereâs a scale near the produce that has a number pad and you press the corresponding number. The number is mentioned in the price listing for the item and sometimes by an icon. Press that and you get a sticker you put on the produce or the bag. Nice for checking out weight/cost too. So itâs very similar to the self-checkout yeah, just without the sticker.
Lidl is different, they do it at the checkout. Donât like it myself since I have to be on watch they get it right, sometimes I wouldâve paid a lot more.