Bob Browning's blog

Yesterday I needed one red pepper plus a bunch of bananas. The checkout lines were horrendous so I decided to take the self-checkout route.

Those machines are the worst user interface I can image.

1. They have a voice response system, but the voice is often telling you something different to what’s on the screen. The screen is saying press enter, and the voice is saying ‘unexpected item in the packing area’.
2. The screen design is bad. When you select an item manually, it asks you to type in the number of items and press enter. There are two clear red buttons for ‘help’ and ‘abandon’. The ‘enter button’ is hidden away in the numeric keypad, the same colour as the numeric keys. I actually had a hard job finding it.
3. If you make a mistake and want to correct it, you can’t remove an item without a supervisor coming up and releasing it. What user interface doesn’t allow you to correct mistakes?
4. The note dispenser is in a totally different place to the coin dispenser which is in a totally different place to the receipt dispenser.

I needed the attendant twice for the purchase of two items. And I am the least techno-phobic person in the world. I can work most bits of gadgetary but this takes the cake.