McDonald’s self-servicing concept with all the accompanying rearranged customer servicing processes are all together an innovative way to boost the efficiency of the provided service and I consider this an excellent advancement.
Still considering the self-servicing kiosk it comes with a few physical deficiencies. One of the most imminent is the location of the card payment terminal which is pretty hard to use if you are not a child. On the picture you can see there is a young child on back side of the kiosk and her height is already a problem when she would want to use a card payment. Of’course she cannot for her age.
It is pretty uncomfortable for an adult to enter the PIN-code or insert the card without squating. Now consider a senior or disabled person with limited motor skills using the terminal.
Next issue concerns the payment card slot and PIN-code keyboard which are located too far from each other, cognitively in a non-binding way. This is not a big issue but it probably slows the payment process for the user who has to look for the card slot and not mistake it with the printer slot. Paying would take less time if the PIN-code keyboard would be in close vicinity of the card slot.
The faulty design when considering the location of payment terminal is probably due to the width limitations of the kiosk, since the card-terminal, QR-code scanner and receipt printer cannot be located on top of the screen for it would be too high for many clients to reach. So it is located at the bottom of the kiosk.
This hardware could be included on the front panel to the left or right of the touch screen, but it would make the stand a lot wider (at least the width of the receipt printer) and it would take up more room inside the restaurant. The hardware could also be part of one of the corner sides of the kiosk. Still this would be hard for clients to locate and it would make the machine to grow in depth which is non-practical due the use of excessive materials to manufacture the larger kiosk frame.
Any quick fixes here? For one – the easiest would be to lift the kiosk console higher on its post (this again could limit the access for children). Another more thorough solution would be to attach a separate payment terminal unit on the side of the kiosk’s body on appropriate height. Or a use of a smaller touch screen would allow to lift the card-payment terminal to an upper position.