I can't imagine how you can fail so spectacularly at your job as to design the self-checkout experience, so I'm forced to believe that all those issues are there on purpose.
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[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17682494 -> https://brandur.org/interfaces
Although scanning each item individually is still time consuming. Removing that requirement would be awesome.
The mechanism in as shown in the article (bring all the bags to the check-out lane, scan, weight, pay) is just horrid, and way slower. I just go to the regular checkout in these cases. I've seen a store which replaced all regular queues with self-checkout lanes, and now I just avoid it.
The second method is by taking a barcode gun with you at the entrance, scan the items as you go, and simply pay at the exit. There are random-rechecks, but they are performed by the cashier, so they're quick. On average, it's actually faster, and I do prefer this method. The barcode scanner takes the tally for you and can do a price check, which is another convenience to have sometimes.
Every store I've seen using this tech was from Siemens and I'm pretty happy about the implementation.
There is a cashier that scans your items as normal (from one basket into another basket) but each cashier station has two automated pay stations (they can also be shareD).
Once your stuff is scanned the cashier sends you to one of the stations with your basket and you pay ther. You then pack you bags in a dedicated packing area.
It removes the frustration of dealing with scanning yourself. Paying is quick and simple and a separate bagging area (which is std in Japan to be honest) ensures no bottle-necks.
I gotta say I like this system a lot
This would explain why the bad, but still automated, scanning stations still exist.
I've always seen a bagging area just after the scanning station here. I'm not sure it's the same in Japan. But all the people I've seen start to bag while the items are scanned. This results in the cashier waiting for you to pay, blocking people in the line.
With the systems I've discussed in the beginning, you basically bag your items as you go. In the normal case of no-recheck, you pay and leave.
At the grocery store, it's a totally different story. Every time I try to use the self-checkouts, I end up regretting it. I think the difference is that the grocery store machine attempts to make sure you don't steal anything by verifying that nothing is put in the bags without a scan, or that the weight of that something agrees with what is scanned. This never works, it always says "unexpected item in bagging area", and then you have to wait for a store person to clear it for you. It ends up taking forever. (Not to mention the vegetables without bar codes that the actual checkers have all the codes memorized for but that you have to search through a long list to find...)
I vastly prefer self-checkouts, I hate having to hurry up at the checkout just so the person after me doesn't have to wait for me to put everything in my bag. Let me take it slow, I honestly hate the "normal checkout".
I avoid supermarkets that don't have them!
Eventually I got it to scan, but I'm pretty sure I would have been able to call over a member of staff to do it manually if not.
In this case I wonder if an attempt at calling staff was made. If not, perhaps the instructions were not clear enough about what to do in that situation.
After 17 minutes with frozen items melting beside me, I'd probably start to panic and behave more irrationally too.
I was reading jobs that became part of history recently, like the movie seat showing guy/gal, or elevator guy/gal. I only saw the format, but thinking latter was interesting.
Years from now, a lot of jobs will look "interesting" to next generations. Like the guy that carries construction material around - it'll be robots.
It will all be better eventually, but what will happen in the interim. Maybe that's how social nets form.
But experiencing them on perhaps a monthly basis these days, I’ve developed an overwhelming urge to avoid them at all costs. And not because of incidents as described by this article.
It’s reached the point that even when I’m holding a single item, and there are five people with full shoppings carts in front of me, I get annoyed at people who suggest self checkout to me. I know damn well that there’s a self checkout lane, and it’s my time to waste. I’m waiting in precisely the lane I intend to be in.
Even though I totally agree that working a cash register should very nearly be an anachronistic job at this point, self checkout lanes are a horrid abomination in their modern form. Waiting for these machines to prompt me through the task of ringing my own items up is so far from my own experiences of actually working as a cashier, that I shake my head in dismay nearly every time.
When I used to work register at no less than ten other jobs, I could rip through a collection of 20 or 30 items in a minute or less (as long as barcodes or price tags were legible), and accept payment as fast as you could hand it to me. But self checkout prompts. Stops. Waits. Prompts. Stops. Fails. Back to square one. Prompt. Wait... Wait... Prompt. And so on.
Why is it so bad? Why is it worse than vending machines? So much worse. And restaraunts are trying to pull the same trick. Self service touchscreens leave you sitting at tables, unserved for half an hour, until you walk over to the bar and complain.
The future is hell.