The self-checkout navigation is intentionally hobbled, probably because old people will 'press' a button about six times with shaking hands. Feels like they're putting button presses into a buffer for a half second or more.

Watch next time an employee has to "help" you with self checkout: they scan their badge and then can press buttons as quickly as they like.

I've noticed recent iterations of self-checkouts are much easier to use. Feels like they've relaxed the weight-on-tray requirements.

And at self checkouts with the option of a handheld scanner, use it. Often the handheld scanner seems to bypass the place-item-in-bagging-area thing.

> The self-checkout navigation is intentionally hobbled, probably because old people will 'press' a button about six times with shaking hands.

So that is why ... it makes sense since I distincly remember the kiosks working fine in the beginning.

They should add a "turbo button".

The kiosks infuriate me by the sluggish UI. Also the 3 or 4 sellup spam ads you get make it even slower.

Given roughly equivalent line waits, I've found human checkers tend to be much faster if you have more than a handful of items - they know where the barcodes are on the items so they don't have to play the game where you try to figure out which side of the soda bottle or cereal box has the barcode on it, and they already have the codes for produce memorized. Sometimes you get an incompetent or new checker, or you get stuck behind the morbidly obese lady who has to pay for $5 worth of Gatorade and cookies with an EBT card and $60 worth of cigarettes and dog food with a credit card, oh that one didn't work let's try it again, yeah it didn't work again, well now let's try this card this one will work for sure NO TIMMY I DON'T CARE IF YOU'VE GOT TO USE THE BATHROOM YOU SIT YOUR ASS DOWN AND SHUT UP OR I SWEAR TO CHRIST I WILL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT, but just on the average I find self check-out machines to take much longer because the person doing all the work has far more experience and competence at the task in question.

> whereas I go to the self-checkout at the grocer's

"Please place item in bagging area. Please place item in bagging area. Please place item in bagging area. Thank y... Please place item in bagging area. Please wait for assistance." Yeah, no thanks. I only use those crappy fail machines when I have no choice because there are no open checkout lanes with people manning them.

I used to agree. The store in which I use it the most, HEB in Texas, doesn't have issues often. The only design decision that is frustrating is that for certain items, it tries to insist I "bag" the item by putting it on the small bagging area, even if it's a 2.5 gallon jug of water. I have to wait 5 seconds for the prompt to time out and then I can say "skip bagging".

For a few small items, CVS and HEB do well.

The people are removed from the ordering experience at all McDonalds in my local area (Sydney Australia-ish)

The registers are hidden behind a counter and there's no obvious place to order, unless you use the kiosk.

If you stand at the empty counter for ~5 minutes, a staff member will eventually appear for something else (e.g. to give out an order) and serve you reluctantly - it's awful.

I can't stand any self checkouts anywhere. I always order with a person.

I love self checkouts. Home Depot has the best with the wireless scanners.

With few items, I can be in and out in a minute and never have to wait in line because there are so many self checkouts. If I have a lot of items, then I can wait in line for cashier because scanning all of them is more work than I care for.

I rarely have issues using them, at a variety of retailers.

Here in Japan Uniqlo’s self checkout is awesome, you dump the clothes into a bin and then it wirelessly/barcodelessly scans everything and just tells you the total. Idk if they’re doing that in the USA yet.

It’s also available in the UK.

Easily, the best self checkout I’ve ever used.

Decathlon does that in Romania.

Probably everywhere. It does mean that every single one of their items carries an RFID tag which is a privacy issue and an environment issue.

It can be an environmental issue, sure, but how would it be a privacy one? Items already have a unique number of some sort, I don't see how storing it on an RFID tag changes things.

I guess unless that tag is deactivated at checkout, you might now be wearing a unique collection of RFID tags?

The RFID is in the sales tag, so unless you're walking around with the tags still attached…

No, for clothing they are in the same label that tells you how to wash it and for other items they are in some easy to miss sticker.

One of the larger super market chains here have a phone app, which allows you to scan your items as you walk through the store. When you leave, you just scan a big QR code at checkout and that will charge the card stored in the app.

It's a really quick way of doing checkouts, i.e. you pretty much just walk out, unless you bought alcohol, in which case you'll need to wait for someone to check that you're 18.

My main issue with it is that it makes shopping terribly slow and mentally stressful. The whole process of scanning items as you pick them up is less convenient that you'd think. Some items, like vegetables don't have barcode... now what? I found myself constantly checking that I've scanned everything and focused more on the app than anything else. It's a great way to ensure that people only get what's on their shopping list.

Except for the fast checkout, which is really nice, I can't recommend it.

I am a huge fan as well. I usually feel like I am spending much less time during the checkout process than I used to.

Sometimes though, when all the checkout lanes are in use, I dream of a licensing scheme for use. So many people take _forever_ to checkout, you would think this technology was introduced in the last month.

When this happens I like to play a game where I race to check myself out before everyone else (that has already started since I am taking the latest emptied spot). I would say I win this game probably 80% of the time.

I think Home Depot might be more usable because many of their items are too big to be removed from the cart and put on a scale, so they don't have that slowdown-inducing option for under-scanning prevention