Our robotic shopping overlords
These days I usually buy my groceries at a Slovenian supermarket chain Mercator - they opened a new store recently just across Zemanta's offices. Since it's a new building it boasts a row of automatic check-out machines.
It must have been gut feeling, but I've never went near those things until a couple of weeks ago, when store employees started insisting that you try to use them.
Well, I'm not an expert in the field of usability, but I did my share of interface designs and I think that system can go down as a wonderful example of how not to make a human-machine interface. Especially not one that is intended for such a broad use.
It's downright confusing: you have no less than 6 ways of interaction, each one on a visually very distinct piece of the machine:
- The bar code scanner,
- touch-sensitive LCD,
- coin and banknote slot,
- returned change slot,
- card reader with its own keypad and
- scale for verifying the weight of the merchandise
You have to use all of these in correct order - even if you pay with cash, you have to use the smart card reader to insert their customer loyalty card.
I don't know about the average shopper, but my brain is only able to process one input channel at a time. When a machine is trying to tell me something in voice, plus displaying something different on the screen (plus there's an employee near-by, helpfully telling you his own instructions), I get annoyed in the best case.
Then there's paperwork. You get 6 different pieces of paper back (printed by two distinct printers). Some of which you are supposed to throw back into the machine! Don't ask me which ones - I just stuffed in pieces that didn't look like the master receipt. Or do they expect me to completely read those two meters of paper on the spot while a queue is building behind me?
And finally, the straw that broke the camel's back and the reason I'll never use the machine again: they force you to get a new plastic bag for each visit. No, you can't bring your own. I tried, successfully triggered an alarm and got told that that is a feature, not a bug (why, everyone likes a free plastic bag!).
Great. At the time where everyone is talking about sustainable economy and how to change the throw-away society, they introduce a service that gives out plastic bags in the thousands which will be thrown away the moment the happy shoppers get home.
I can understand a plan to take over the world by replacing people with cold, heartless machines, but this is ridiculous!
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