What's wrong with self-checkout

In today's hectic world, it often seems that direct human-to-human interaction is in grave danger. We speak to each other through email, over phones (cell or otherwise), etc., but it seems increasingly rare that we strike up a trivial conversation with our neighbor and hear another perspective on life's events. Yet one place where this chit-chat still occurs is the grocery check-out line. When my wife and I go shopping, it is a rare thing when the the clerk is not engaged in friendly conversation with my wife, often informing us of interesting or important tid-bits of information: there is a sale tomorrow on cookware, he or she is friends with my next-door neighbor, etc. And while I am not a great conversationalist and seldom engage in these conversations, I nonetheless enjoy them and (possibly for this reason) always seek out a chatty-looking clerk when I am shopping alone.

About a year ago, our local monopolistic house of cheap imported goods installed a number of self-checkout lines. I have used them once or twice, usually out of necessity, and truly abhor the experience. Yet, at some level it strikes me as odd that a geeky fellow such as myself would have an aversion to what is arguably a neat toy. Why do I dislike automated checkout? Obviously, the shopper is doing all of the work, but that shouldn't be a problem; after all, I am quite willing to load and unload my own cart, go through the rituals required to run my debit card, (sometimes) bag my goods and load them into the cart, transfer the bags into my vehicle, put the cart away, unload the bags from my vehicle, and put the goods in their proper locations in my home. Ringing the goods up on a register is really a trivial component to this process.

So if it isn't the work, is it the lack of conversation such as I mentioned above? After all, the cartoon-ish graphics on the LCD screen don't really connote "chatty", even if there is "conversation" at some level taking place. The interaction could be far friendlier, perhaps even eventually using a robot such as ASIMO or Repliee Q1Expo. Yet, there are two problems here: 1) we interact with other humans quite happily in far more restrictive conditions - a Russian ham-radio operator conversing with an American one using Morse code, for example, and 2) conversation with a human clerk is possible, but does not always occur. I suspect, however, that this lack of potential conversation is a factor in my aversion.

One aspect of the conversation that does occur, and that is perhaps the leading cause of my aversion, is the nature of the relationship between human and computer in these self-checkout lanes. Here we have the culmination of decades of technological research embodied in an appliance; these machines are not very intelligent and do not operate well outside of pre-determined limits. Those limits are tightly coupled to the perceived (by the designers) shopping process: take an item, scan it, put it in the bag. After so many items are placed in a bag (by weight), remove the bag and begin loading a new bag. Once you have scanned all items, pay, receive your change (if any) and receipt. Then begin the loop again. A very simple process that is about as efficient as a single chicken plowing a field. Moreover, the process works well in an automated environment, but humans are not "automatic". We don't always want to put that soda we just purchased into a bag, nor do we want to mix certain items. And these automated lines aren't very fault-tolerant: once an exception occurs, it usually winds up requiring the assistance of a human pseudo-clerk whose job consists of watching a half dozen machines to make sure that self-checkout proceeds smoothly.

All of the above are problems with the human-computer relationship, but the most grevious issue (in my mind) is that the computer is in charge. Each step of the way, some appliance with a horrible user interface dictates the shopper's next step, in, basically, an inversion of most human-computer interactions, at least as far as they are intended to work. Worse yet is that in typical human-computer interactions, the human is attempting to leverage some quality of the machine (fast processing, large amounts of data, etc.), yet in the self-checkout lane, the computer (easily the "dumber" of the two in its stripped-down appliance form) doesn't leverage the intelligence of the user at all.

In fact, human intelligence is probably one of the leading causes of "exceptions" as we attempt to optimize our shopping, ordering items on the conveyor belt, etc. We all have our personal quirks about us. Perhaps you order our cart into categories by weight, type, or even price. Perhaps you put items about which you have a question - price, quality, etc. - into the top basket of the cart. Maybe you make every effort to minimize your impact on the environment and bring your own bag(s). Maybe you like to have everything double-bagged, with an even number of items in every bag. However, the computer doesn't account for these variations. I assume that the companies that develop the checkout software see these variations as too difficult to account for. I would also suspect that a number of developers would welcome the challenge. Instead, however, the software adheres to a market-driven conformity: no bells or whistles, out the door fast, and little need for user training. Unfortunately, then, it seems that to use the self-checkout (a misnomer, since it is really a computer in charge) is to deny our own personal way of shopping and submit to an alien sense of conformity.

So I always make an effort to find a human clerk when I an checking out. Perhaps I will find out about the classes she is taking, his hometown, her engagement, his new dog, etc. Perhaps we will sit there in a cold silence heated only by the fact that we are two humans interacting. Regardless, we will both retain some semblance of our individuality through the process.