McDonald’s, Meet McPathogens

https://mindmatters.ai/2018/12/mcdonalds-meet-mcpathogen/

by yters • 8 years ago

14 22 8 years ago

Tihiy• 8 years ago

Bullshit. Nobody ever wants to talk with another human being and line up to touch kiosks. You contact far more pathogens by touching public handrails and doorknobs.

fhbdukfrh2• 8 years ago

If this is a real problem (of which I'm doubtful) McDonalds, being one of the most responsive large companies in the world, will fix it first by adding to human janitorial duties and soon after have the kiosk self clean, or remove it and push everyone to the my McD app on their own, filthy phone

deft• 8 years ago

McDonald's outsourced the work traditionally done by their staff to the customer. Their staff is forced to wash their hands at common intervals, the general public isn't. Interesting article :)

vortico3• 8 years ago

There's a probability for picking up infections for every object you touch, which is proportional to the number of hands that touched it prior to your operation. If this is a significant problem compared to human cashiers, there's an easy fix that is the same with bathrooms and tables: require that janitors on duty sanitize them every X hours.

Also, I've used automatic ordering touch screens before and didn't have any difficulty. I feel that the employee's response "She sighed, looked me in the eye, and confessed “Everybody does.”" is exaggerated. What she meant was probably "It's super easy but some customers still can't get it, so I will sympathize with you because saying 'no, it's easy' would be rude."

AstralStorm3• 8 years ago

The second solution is to use an antibacterial surface. Nanoparticle silver or copper are a good choice.

Of course such a screen would have to be specially made.

vortico3• 8 years ago

How much are these? (USD ea for 100,000 volume, say)

cma• 8 years ago

Another option is to use a touchless approach with something like leap motion.

chaoticmass2• 8 years ago

I've used the Kiosks at McD's and it really was baffling trying to figure out how to order a combo meal. I figured I could just go to [Combo Meals] -> [#X Quarter Pounder]

Instead you have to pick the burger, then way down on the bottom (where you're not looking because the screens are vertical and huge) there is a button to make it a combo. I never found the combo button on my own and had to ask. You'd think since most people order combos they would make it more intuitive to order those. Finally, there are some combo meals (two cheese burger meal) that you can't get as a combo from the kiosk. You'd have to order single cheese burger combo, customize it, add to order, then select a 2nd cheese burger and customize it-- except you can't because the single patty cheese burger can't be made into a combo meal (the combo button doesn't appear). So then you have to just pick the burger, add fries, drink, etc and presumably pay more. To a human I can just say "number X with ketchup and mayo only" and they have it rung up in seconds where it takes much longer on the kiosk.

vortico3• 8 years ago

I haven't tried ordering combos (don't really like sodas), so I haven't had this experience. I feel it would be fun to be on the team to test and design revisions to the touch screen menu.

zck• 8 years ago

It’s so much easier to order my Egg McMuffin and black coffee from a human behind the counter than to poke my index finger through a decision tree on the self-order kiosk.

I disagree. When I've been to McDonald's (a few times a year), I find the kiosks easier.

1. There's rarely a line, even when there's a line to order at the counter.

2. Things are more discoverable. If you already know exactly what you want, it is probably faster to order with a human. But if you're not sure, the overhead menu boards are not so easy to work with; they are now screens that move and don't show all the menu at one time. It also isn't always obvious what prices are.

3. Things are easier to customize. The kiosk says exactly what you can add or remove. For example, recently I found out through a Shake Shack kiosk that you can add lettuce to a spicy chicken sandwich, or make it extra spicy and remove pickles. A human cashier might suggest one of those things, but not all of them.

4. There's no pressure to move along. You're not bothering anyone by looking through the options in the kiosk. However, if you stop for ten seconds while ordering at the counter to try to figure out if you're in a quarter pounder or a crispy chicken sandwich mood, it feels like you're bothering the cashier.

Retra• 8 years ago

If you took ten seconds before you placed your order, you could instead realize that the vast majority of these decisions you're making our irrelevant to your life and you could spend your time doing more enjoyable and worthwhile things instead, without driving yourself to decision fatigue over a pickle.

StrictDabbler• 8 years ago

Absolutely. I have two further points:

5. Once you've learned the idiosyncrasies of the kiosk it is the same on every visit.

Human cashiers vary in their understanding of the menu, the McDonald's system, and the local language. The human cashiers are also just poking their index fingers through a decision tree, though it's broader and less deep than self-serve kiosks often offer us.

If I'm ordering hamburgers for a road-trip I know my wife wants tartar sauce on hers, I want no ketchup on mine but I want extra mustard, and my cousin wants neither.

Trying to convey such a simple order (6Hamburgers)=(2TarterAdded+2(KetchupRemoved+ExtraMustard)+2(no sauce)) is an infuriating exercise in implicit closures.

"So you want extra mustard on the ones without ketchup?"

"On two of the ones without ketchup, yes. Two of the burgers are without any sauce at all."

Try ordering the sandwiches one-by-one and you'll discover that any two identical sandwiches in a row are treated as a mistaken repetition. Etc, etc.

6. The mobile apps allow parallelism. You don't have to wait to get to the counter or even the restaurant to make your order.

While I'm driving my wife can order our food. It's not exactly ready when we arrive but it's a lot sooner than if we'd waited in line.

At Disneyland, we often walked right by dozens of families to pick up our mobile orders because nobody had bothered to understand the app. We saved hours of waiting and given the price we were paying Disney to be in the park that was a huge savings.

The fundamental practical advantages of mobile ordering are so great that the back-end side will never be abandoned. So why not have a giant tablet in the restaurant running the front-end?

tantalor• 8 years ago

This is useless blog spam & buries the lead.

Just read the original article: https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/28/poo-found-on-every-mcdonalds-...

fhbdukfrh2• 8 years ago

This is not about making your experience "more enjoyable" it is a direct response to wage increases that directly target these workers and the company responding. Same with the grocery store. Or mobile ordering from Starbucks, or using an ATM. The experience ranges from much better (ATMs) to much, much worse (grocery stores) , but the only way they will "fail" is if everyone forgoes their big mac to go somewhere else and pay more for human cashiers. That is not going to happen.

aeternus• 8 years ago

The failure of the Grocery store self-checkouts is that they are not automated enough.

The customer still has to manually scan every item. Items have to be placed one-by-one in the bagging area. Any small divergence from this, or something out of the ordinary like an Alcohol purchase triggers an exception and requires human intervention. This is enough automation/tech to be annoying but not enough to solve the real problem.

Contrast that with the Amazon Go store which is automated enough that very few would prefer the cashier route even if available.

unique-template• 8 years ago

I stopped reading at "The Blaze reports..."

partycoder• 8 years ago

Have people use an app instead, problem solved.

The same people touched the entrance door handle anyways. And if you use cash you are exposed to the same germs.

AstralStorm3• 8 years ago

Actually worse. Cash is porous giving a nice surface for bacteria to hold and is rarely if ever washed.

adamiscool8• 8 years ago

I would anticipate the kiosks move to voice control before they would ever go back to cashiers.

morkfromork• 8 years ago

They have an app. You do not need to touch their kiosks or deal with the kid behind the counter.

McDonald’s, Meet McPathogens

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