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The difference between self check out and staffed lanes is the conveyor belt. If you arrange your stuff in the right order in the shopping cart you do not need the conveyor belt.
Most people buy the same stuff week after week so it's not that hard to arrange your stuff in order in the shopping cart.
Nobody is forced to use SCO. If it makes you uncomfortable, causes cramps, irritates your arthritis, tennis elbow, bone spurs, your back or it’s simply out of one’s comfort zone.... please feel free to use the cashier. Problem solved!
Kind of wondering if the OP is an engineer. The kind of guy who whips out his mic to measure 1/2 inch heater hose ( that has 1/2” printed on the hose), or mics every single 3/8”x1” bolt in the box before he chooses the “one” he came to get.
Please and thank you: Refrain from clogging this topic up with general discussion of self-checkout stores, experiences, preferences, etc. There are several threads that cover those generalities already; Thank you and please.
SCO stations are much the same. I've seen a couple of different designs but absolutely none of them have any good way to deal with "outflow" — once you've managed to scan an item and put it in ze bag as directed by Frau B*tchyvoice... there's no place to go with more than a few items. No shelf. No good way to turn and put it in the cart, which often triggers even more stern instructions/warnings/fraud notice shoutings from the system. The only checkout system that's even remotely like this is the one I see at Walmart Groceries, where the checker has to put the scanned item directly in a bag... but at least has a carousel of them to help, the top of the carousel to set large or fragile items (for top-bagging)... and they always expend far too much time trying to check/scan/and then properly bag, making the process as inefficient as possible.
So, SCO customers are expected to do all of the following, more or less simultaneously:
Position the cart so the goods in it can be reached, but without being in anyone's way, especially not that of the shopper at the next station, which is probably too close. OR
Put a basket down on a tiny shelf, if there even is one. AND THEN
Scan each item and IMMEDIATELY put it in a bag, of which some stations have one and a few have two. SO
You have to make continual decisions about what to pick up and scan next, working from cans and jars to boxes to soft stuff, all the while being hectored by voice prompts when you don't seem to be moving fast enough. AND THEN
Figure out what to do when the bag or bags are full, as you're not usually supposed to turn and put it back over in the cart and there is rarely if ever a shelf to set them on.
If they want us to do the job, they should at least enable us to do so.
The bolded items used to be a problem at Walmart, but now I can scan items and put them directly back in the cart. It's a big help to be able to do this with the large items.
One problem I have with Walmart's check-out stations, though, is that most of them have the bags on the back, rather than the side. I try to head for the one station that has bags on the side, where I can easily reach them.
The ergonomics of self checkout are not even on my list of things worthy of my attention right now.
Sure, I might want more space at the register. But I just can't get that worked up about it. Bigger fish to fry, as one saying goes. Sorry.
Maybe your store offers that. I haven't seen any such feature, although I note my grocery store seems to have turned things down to "less insistent help" — either as time has gone by or because they recognize me as someone who's used the system a few times.
As no two installations seem to be even close to the same model or process, it's unlikely to be a common or easily accessed feature. And is simply one more annoyance, not the real problem(s).
No, but the slightest pause of any kind seems to prompt a potty-training command. Adding to the poor design is that they never seem to **** and let you work things through, like what to do with eggs you scanned too early.
S T F U? Really? Gosh, sorry, Miss Mimsy...
A good part of my background is in ergonomics, user interface design (physical and online), usability, etc. There is far, far, far, far too much willingness for people to either blame themselves for "being slow and stupid with machines" or for others to preen about how quickly they can use them (so you must just be stupid)... when as with older ATMs and pretty much all POS terminals now in use, the interface is so bad that even product testers get confused.
It is trivial to do it right; why no one bothers is an enduring mystery. No POS terminal, for example, should EVER have post-it notes or handwritten notices taped on it, or foul up irretrievably if the customer does some step at the wrong time. They are deeply programmable, highly flexible devices... that the vendors take out of the box, plug in and walk away, leaving all kinds of usability and interface glitches that are "of course, the fault of stupid customers." One after another by the hundreds a day.
I didn't know either until someone mentioned it. It's on the screen. You can make the voice shut up. I'm sure it's on every system. Even though systems vary, if one has a feature, the other usually does, and if we end-users thought of something, a geek thought of it first.
I did that once or twice, but now I just answer it and tell it to shut up. "Please wait for assistance."
"SHUT UP. I DO NOT NEED ASSISTANCE."
People around me just see a six-foot-tall crazy old woman and leave me alone.
I received a message the other day that said, "Consider the uses of adversity". This falls into that category.
I got annoyed with it yesterday because I bought two plants. You can pay outside for the plants, but only after 9 a.m., and it was 8:30, so I put the plants in the bottom of the cart and went and got my produce and half and half that I'd come for.
So, I scanned the plants first, but then of course The Voice keeps insisting I put them in the bagging area. I don't want to bag the plants, but now the "I don't want to bag this item" choice no longer appears on the screen. I set them down in the bagging area and put the small plant in a bag, which seemed to satisfy The Voice.
Then, after I bagged my other things but before I paid, I pushed the cart forward to put the big plant in the bottom, and The Voice came back with "Unidentified object in the bagging area." Meaning the cart.
"SHUT UP YOU IDIOT, IT'S THE CART". That brought a snicker from the guy at the station on the other side of me. So then I pushed the cart back to where it had been in front of the scanner, and it didn't know I had put the plant in the bottom. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I win!
2030.
Every tenth customer will be summoned to clean the toilets.
Young and able bodied man and woman will be escorted to the unloading dock, the self driving truck has no driver....
Homeless people at the traffic light will be fetched in the evening, they must clean the store and fill up everything.
Produce department is on the roof, where it grows fresh. You pick.
You're funny, Cory!
I agree with you Therblig! I wonder if this is why I've never seen SCO in Europe or So. America? Heck, our cashiers get to sit on stools and the carts don't even fit in the check-out aisle. You have to get a second type of cart to take outside. Often wondered what is the thinking there?
So many designed items are mysteriously non-ergonomic... I try to avoid them
I love self-checkout. It's so convenient when I have 4-5 items or even 15-20 items, and I just want to ring them up, pay, and get out of there.
The local supermarket has a pretty decent self-checkout system, with six stations and one employee to supervise. Usually it goes smoothly, though sometimes the machine balks and calls for help; the employee comes over, types in a pin, unfreezes the machine, and then I'm on my way again. They tend to only have one or two out of 10 human checkout lines staffed, so you're somewhat encouraged to go sco.
In this epidemic, I appreciate not having to let both a cashier and a bagger handle each of my items. I'd rather just handle them all myself, thank you very much.
Interestingly, my favorite supermarket, the one with the best prices and selection, widely praised as the area's best chain, has no self-checkout. Every checkout line is staffed. Regardless of check-out, if they were closer to my house, I'd go there exclusively.
I don't see why people complain so much about self-checkout. It works well 99% of the time; after a couple of shopping expeditions, you have mastered it.
Walmart is reportedly doing away with human cashiers and soon it will all be self-checkout. This is the wave of the future; people should prepare themselves for it!
I notice that most of the stores I shop in have disabled the voice function that keeps telling you to place it in the bag, and the function that used to get freaked out if you removed a bag to the cart to make more room on the bagging table. I guess it was a weight sensor in the bagging table that triggered the voice, and now it doesn't seem to matter if I bag something or move something on the table. They probably heard me screaming at the thing so often that they turned it off. LOL
I notice that most of the stores I shop in have disabled the voice function that keeps telling you to place it in the bag, and the function that used to get freaked out if you removed a bag to the cart to make more room on the bagging table. I guess it was a weight sensor in the bagging table that triggered the voice, and now it doesn't seem to matter if I bag something or move something on the table. They probably heard me screaming at the thing so often that they turned it off. LOL
I think the voice is just for theft prevention. If the employee overseeing self-checkout notices dead silence from your kiosk, he's probably supposed to come over and check.
The ergonomics of self checkout are not even on my list of things worthy of my attention right now.
Sure, I might want more space at the register. But I just can't get that worked up about it. Bigger fish to fry, as one saying goes. Sorry.
So you wasted time reading the thread and replying to let everyone know that you're too busy with important things to do so. Got it.
One of the points here and in other threads is that this stuff is happening while we are distracted with other issues. It may not be as trivial as you seem to think.
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