Overview

Self-checkout machines are changing how we shop. This final project is work on redesgin the Ralph’s self-checkout machine to incerase the efficiency and quality control. Our redeisgn solution is to change the user flow sequence to provide a better checkout experience.

My Involvement

Team

Client

Duration

User Research, Interview, Final Design, Final Paper

Ralph’s Checkout
Toshiba Environment Version 7.1.7.7057b

Winter 2020 ( 3weeks)

We decided to analyze Ralph’s self checkout for several reasons:

High useful frequency for grocery shopping.

Self-checkout is popular to all kinds of target users, our sample are large.

Controlled variable, we controlled all of interviewees talked about the same kind of self checkout.

All of our group members and our friends all have had our own unsatifised experience using self-checkout in Ralph’s before.

BRAINSTORMING

According to the topic about the self-checkout we already determined, we used mind map to brainstorm, analyze, and organize ideas from ten different categories.

Basic Information

Task Observation

She is an vegetarian and eco friendely champion. And she worked in the yoga studio beside the Ralph’s. She usually eat the green food and used to buy the organic food. After yoga classes, she often went to Ralph’s to buy the salad or the Chipotle for dinner. In most of cases, she only bought several items and she would use self-checkout for convience.

She chose the button “use my own bag” in the screen, the repetative alert “the item is not in the bagging area” and attendant came.
She looked up the banana picture and weight the items.
She pressed the button “void item” and the attendent was called.
She photoed the PLU code in the bulk area and typed the code in the machine.

Easier to use reusable bags
Don’t need to call attendent for bags
Better scale system for bulk items

Suggestion

Basic Information

Task Observation

He lived the neighbor near this Ralph’s market and he didn’t have the car, so he came here at least two or three times per week for general gocery shopping. He usually chose to buy the sales product with the yellow tag. He also bought other daily necessities online. He chose the self-check out if the normal checkout line was very long.

He pressed “one” on the screen and the window poped up “Wait for the attendant”, after 30 seconds, the attendant gave him a resuable bag.
He scanned the sticker on the banana and weight the items.
He didn't know how to void the items so he had to call the attendant.
He tried to find the almonds under the "look up your item" categories, but it not works well so he had to call the attendant.

Suggestion

Don’t need to choose payment method
Be able to purchase alcohol
Don’t need attendant for item voiding

Visualization

The professional level of each customer before vs after the interview.

Most of customers used self-checkout either save time or no interact with people.

The majority of customers dislike the self-checkout because of attendent intervention.

The ideal self-checkout in customer’s heart.

The majority of customers went to the grocery store weekly.

Most of customers increased their professional skill of using self-checkout after the interview.

The age range of most of customer are rejuvenation, less than 30 years old.

Storyboard

Mingming went to Rlaph’s, and she looked the check-out line is very long, so she went to the self-checkout line to save times.

The machine alerted “BEEP”, but she didn’t know why because she used her own bag and she found there’re no language choice of Chinese.

She didn’t want the yogurt during the self-check out and she didn’t know why attedent come. When she tried to buy the bulk items, it notificated “PUL code” and she backed to bulk area.

Finally, she was very frustrated and grabbed all the items and went to the normal checkout.

SKETCH

Home Page

Voding the Item

Product Details

The redeisgn page puts the instructions in the center of the screen and the font becomes larger.

The redeisgn page allows the user to check the box in front of the things needed to be voided.

The redeisgn page cuts the accessory button on the bottom from eight to five.

Reusable Bag

Bulk Items

Payment

The redeisgn page asks yes or no question in a more direct way.

The redeisgn page shows the picture and name of each bulk item.

The redeisgn page doesn’t need the user to select the payment method, the machine can recognize automatically.

Iterations

Problem A : Unconvinence of using own reusable Bag

4 out of 18 participants had issues with using a reusable bag on the scale. Because they did not understand that the bag had to be placed in one specific location on the scale that afforded placing a bag on a raised platform with hooks but was lacking in clear signifiers for its purpose. Users can eventually checkout their items successfully, but getting through the steps of self-checkout may not be as smooth.

Sub-problem I. Forgettable reusable bag scale area

Old Version

Limited bagging area is unconspicuous.

Around the bagging area wrapped with red striking stickers.

Enlarged the reusable bag scale area to the anywhere in the checkout area.

Sub-problem II. Confusing welcome Page

Old Version

The user won’t notice this small sentence under the big clear picutre.

We enlarged the text and changed to two lines. After scan the item or touch the screen, it will automatically skip to yes/no resuable bag question. It avoided mistake operation.

We combined two pages to one page. On the welcome page, if you have the resuable page, you can pressed the button. It also avoid mistake operation.

Sub-problem III. Unnecessary main function button

Old Version

Alternate id is the function user won’t use.

We changed alternate id to “void the item” because void the item is the new function we added to the system.

We continued adding one more main function button which is “reusable bag”, if the user needed the buy the resuable bag, they can press the button.

Problem B: Missing bulk item look up

9 out of 18 participants had issues with scanning a bulk of almonds. They tried find the picture and name on the system. But nothing showed up. They had to leave the self checkout area to find the PLU number at the bulk section. The process was time-consuming.

Sub-problem I. Label-maker was broken

PLU Label

Out of Label

Now, the user have to photo or write down the PLU code in the phone and type it on the check-out machine, very inconvenient.

The user supposed to print the label on the label-maker and scan the label. But it showed “out of label”, so fix the label maker or replace a new one is very necessary.

Sub-problem II. No related information

Old Version

The user cannot find anything related to the bulk items.

Added all kinds of bulk item pictures and names in the machine, the same as vegetables and fruits. Two assist buttons on the bottom.

The user could search by alphbet order as well. Moved “cannot find the item button to an obvious position, on the top right.

Sub-problem III. Assist page is not helpful

Old Version

When the user tried to press the “cannot find the item”, it suggested some of unrelated items, the only helpful thing is the shinning number board.

Gerenally, the user only pressed this button if they couldn’t find anything related. Assist button can direct jump to attendent help function and suggest several possible ways to find the item.

Sepcified the reason why the user needs to call the attendent, in some random case, when the user notice the probelm, he also realized the solution and canceled the attendent calling.

Final DESIGN

Reusable Bag

A more direct way to choose reusable bag. The user can choose to use his own bag before he started to scan the item. And it’s always offer the big button function for the user to buy the reusable bag.

Bulk Item Look Up

The user don’t need to remember the PUL code, they can look up the bulk item by the picture categorization. And the user also might look up the bulk items by alphabet or code as alternative options.

Void the Item

The user can select multiple items to void them or cancel the void by checking or unchecking the box. And clear pop-up to confirm that the user have already voided the item.

Payment

Reduced the number 1,2,3,4, simplfied to six big option button, which including coupon, donate, membership card, cash, mobile and card payment. With the icon, the user can easily choose the method even without thinking.

takeaways

After our final display, we received very positive feedback from the our professor and TAs. The professor said he liked how we solve the users’ pain points (ex. the assist page of calling attendent ) and the whole detailed research to illustrate what exactly problem affects users directly. My personal takeawys:

This project is the first meaningful milestone for my future career. This is my first time to do a user interface redesign project, l learned user interview and inital research is extremely important in the design process, also iteration is also crucial for a better final desgin. However, we only had three week time, we didn’t solve all of our problem statements.
If we continue this project, we would definitely want to do more in-depth interviews and AI facial recognition mockup machine. We will set up the interview with attendants, employees, and supervisors to understand their perspectives. And we will make a mockup self-checkout machine which owns a camera with AI facial recognition feature to confirm identities when users have either their passport or driver license to use as 21+ confirmation. If the id and face pair successfully, then users can continue with their alcohol purchases.