Rimi self-servicing cashiers are meant to optimize costs on employees for now even one cashier can take care of six or more cashiers. The idea is brilliant. But the self-servicing interactions have to be smooth enough to encourage clients to use these and feel the difference.
Therefore the system should not make you think since as quick as the process is completed the next client in the line can be served. The Rimi solution unfortunately makes you think which makes it slower than it could be.
Most important of ‘course is the sensibility of the bar code scanner which here is quite okey. But we have a few setbacks concerning some other bits and pieces on the screen real estate.
1. Has anyone ever noticed the help “button – link” called “Learn how to use the coupon”. It is located quite close to the “I want to pay” (“Maksan”) button and it does not convey much meaning – so, what coupon are we talking about?
2. The most important button “I want to pay” is not as visible as it should be. The similarly toned background makes the button to look more like part of the background rather than emphasize it in the foreground. The buttons like “Searching for a product” (“Otsin tooded”), “Adding a bag” (“Lisan koti”) and “Entering the amount” (“Sisestan koguse”) in a column on the right side side from the scanned products list seem visually a lot more prominent. Why not make it larger and/or change its coloring theme?
Following is the view shown to clients after pressing the “Pay” button discussed in point no 2:
3. The “Hello” (“Tere”) word and the client card icon in the header just clutter the view and add no specific value. Unnecessary elements should bear no focus in this rapid process. Instead “Your Rimi money” could be more focused in this area.
4. To continue to paying you have to choose the payment method which is either “Your saved money at Rimi”, “Gift card” or “Bank card”. Which of these 3 is the most often used? You probably guessed it – the bank card. It should be emphasized as such but is designed exactly the same way as other payment choices.
5. The “Choose” button is an overstatement but it is probably needed since a) the header “Choose payment method” is too far away from the payment choices as these seem not visually related and b) due to the problem described in point no 8. If it is anyway needed then why not take away the small button design and add the word as part of the card heading for example “Choose gift card”.
6. As the well-established logical order of user actions in Western world is from top to down then the “I do not want a recite” checkbox should be on top of the payment choices not below. Also you cannot choose it after you press on any payment choice button-card since the screen view is changed right after you choose the payment method. Besides, visually it seems t obe connected to the “Gift cards” option as some extra option of gift cards.
7. What is the purpose of the “0,000 kg Max 6/15kg” information down in the leftmost corner?
8. The idea to change the semantics of a button (instead of going forward it takes you backward) placed exactly in the same location and designed in the same way in a multi-step process is risky. The “Back” (“Tagasi”) button should be on the left (“going back”) of the “going forward” choices or below these but also aligned to the left. Also now it is a secondary not primary choices and should be designed in a less prominent way. See a quick sketch:
One more thing. Since more and more people are getting used to self-servicing you will start to hear more and more beeps around you from other scanners in the self-servicing area and as quite many people rely on sound guidance you might misinterpret someone else’s bar code scan as your own. Therefore the kiosk should display the most recently scanned product in a prominent way to help clients to quickly check the last scan and therefore rapidly recover from errors.
Another thing to try out is to use slightly different scanner sounds per every self-servicing kiosk in the system so different kiosk sounds could not be perceived as the same. Still, this idea is strictly experimental.
In conclusion if you need a fast process you should not make people to think in situations where not necessary.