D.I.Y. checkout lane
This might be a revealing admission: Listening to the TWiT podcast, and heard a bit where they were grousing about self-serve checkout lanes at stores. Leo Laporte went so far as to say he wants a human cashier who says hello, and a bagger at the end of the lane.
Personally? I like the self-serve checkout, even when they're a little buggy. If I end up having to hold something at a peculiar angle to scan it, I get over that quickly. In the end, I usually don't have to ask anyone for help, don't have to wait, and generally I get out of the store faster than anyone.
Maybe I'll grow out of it.
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I'd like it a lot more if they'd give you a discount to make up for the fact that they don't have to pay for a cashier and bagger.
I use the self-checkout when I only have a few items, and I think it will get me out of the store faster. But if I have a large number of items, or there's a regular checkout with no line, I'm generally happier letting somebody else do the scanning and bagging.
Is this post from the future? I'd kill for self-service checkouts, but as far as I know they don't exist yet (in the UK). In fact, I can't quite work out how they'd work without folk 'forgetting' to scan half their shop and leaving with a bag full of stolen goods.
Just once I'd like to use one of them without human intervention. The last time someone convinced me to try it, I think I needed a human to help out at least three times, not exactly a good user experience. I hate to say it, but I prefer having someone do it all for me. Unless of course there is a discount offered, then I would be willing to try it again. ;)
I like the self checkout, usually fairly quick just because it is limited items. If they had more 12 item or less with a person I'd probably be just as happy but the lines get long there since there are only a couple.
Unfortunately they seem to be buggy and worn down here at least. I often go too quick for it and get the dreaded "take last item out of bag and scan it" then have to argue with the person over-seeing it that indeed it beeped and was scanned. I used to be a cashier though.
And there are of course those people that have all produce and are forced to look up the codes. Some stores I've been in are good enough to have stickers on the produce with the codes but that seems to be rarely the case these days.
Yeah, I fear that these systems are unmaintainable because they try to do too much, specifically catch someone shoplifting. So you get those various alerts driven by unexpected weight changes in your bag, for reasons unknown. (I also recall some other problem always coming up during the payment process, but I can't remember what it was...)
Every place I've tried to use them, they are slower than normal cashiers because 1 human is left to cover 4-5 auto machines and you end up waiting for them to come fix things for you.