3 ms·

These machines have backed up the local grocery stores. Seriously terrible UX. Worse, it was a forced upgrade; swipes are rejected.

peteretep 11y ago
If us dummy Europeans have managed it for years, one would think you clever Americans would be able to get to grips with it too...
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Dummy? You can't enter your card until about 10 seconds have passed after all your items have been scanned, or it blows up. You must leave your card in for ~20sec, or it blows up, while the machine does seemingly nothing. The quickest you can complete a transaction is ~30+ seconds; after all the items have been scanned. Compare this to ~5 seconds with the swipe method. Now, take 25 seconds / registers * people. That is the lower bound on how much additional time we must wait in line because of these BS machines. Trader Joe's is now a wasteland of wasted time standing in line.
  - the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
    > You can't enter your card until about 10 seconds have passed after all your items have been scanned, or it blows up. What pos terminal did you use? Besides you can just use NFC in Europe these days which is even faster.
  - casparz 11y ago
    Come visit Holland. Chip+PIN takes as long as it takes to enter the pin (max5s). Only some mobile terminals in low reception spots take between 10-20s. And now with wireless PIN transactions less than €25 are instantaneous. And above again take the time to enter the PIN.
  - geographomics 11y ago
    Sounds like a poor implementation. This problem is rare in the UK - the time from card entry to PIN entry, and PIN entry to completion, is typically near-instant on most terminals.
    - seszett 11y ago
      > Sounds like a poor implementation. That's the US we're talking about, I'm quite sure their banks built everything from scratch without taking into account what a few decades of use have taught European banks. It was also slower than is it today when introduced, at least in France (though mostly because connection was over dialup or GPRS).
    - peteretep 11y ago
      And with contactless, it's faster still...
  - dalke 11y ago
    What you describe isn't the case here in 'dumb' Sweden. Eg, I put my card in while the grocery items are still being scanned. Nor do I recall a 30 second wait when visiting 'dumb' Norway, Denmark, Germany, or Switzerland.
  - deanclatworthy 11y ago
    As has been pointed out several times in these comments, Americans appear to be living with their head above the clouds regarding these machines. in Finland all the machines are hooked up to 3G and initialised in the morning before customers arrive. It takes less than 2s for the the machine to ask for your pin and I'd say on average less than 2-3s to accept it. Tell me, what is the problem?
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Please try reading the article and the thread. TJ's put in the new machines and those machines have the constraints I described above. Europe, its ilk, and their terminals are completely irrelevant.
      - serge2k 11y ago
        > Europe, its ilk, and their terminals are completely irrelevant. Not really. It's a valid comparison to figure out what the cause of the problem actually is.
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        The only explanation that would be remotely plausibly acceptable was if some long-running encryption process was occurring between the card and the terminal. More likely it is just poor specifications and poor execution.
  - sqldba 11y ago
    Here in Australia: * The cashier presses credit on the POS terminal. * It may take 1s for the logo to come up. You hold your card against the reader for ~1s. The icon changes while it's verifying which takes < ~5s.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      This was how it was until places put in new terminals that refuse swipes from chip cards. Instead, you have to insert the chip portion of your card into a slot (after waiting 10s for the prompt to appear [or it will error out]). Then, you must leave your card in the slot, untouched, for about 20s. The tap terminals have existed in the US for years. Usability was pretty much the same as the swipe method: fast and easy.
  - mike_hearn 11y ago
    If it's really taking 30 seconds to verify a card tx then without a doubt your internet connection and/or bank and/or reader hardware is incredibly poor.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Yes, as stated: the reader is incredibly poor. Also, yes, the banks suck.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    It's not that slow.

peteretep 11y ago

If us dummy Europeans have managed it for years, one would think you clever Americans would be able to get to grips with it too...

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Dummy? You can't enter your card until about 10 seconds have passed after all your items have been scanned, or it blows up. You must leave your card in for ~20sec, or it blows up, while the machine does seemingly nothing. The quickest you can complete a transaction is ~30+ seconds; after all the items have been scanned. Compare this to ~5 seconds with the swipe method. Now, take 25 seconds / registers * people. That is the lower bound on how much additional time we must wait in line because of these BS machines. Trader Joe's is now a wasteland of wasted time standing in line.
- the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
  > You can't enter your card until about 10 seconds have passed after all your items have been scanned, or it blows up. What pos terminal did you use? Besides you can just use NFC in Europe these days which is even faster.
- casparz 11y ago
  Come visit Holland. Chip+PIN takes as long as it takes to enter the pin (max5s). Only some mobile terminals in low reception spots take between 10-20s. And now with wireless PIN transactions less than €25 are instantaneous. And above again take the time to enter the PIN.
- geographomics 11y ago
  Sounds like a poor implementation. This problem is rare in the UK - the time from card entry to PIN entry, and PIN entry to completion, is typically near-instant on most terminals.
  - seszett 11y ago
    > Sounds like a poor implementation. That's the US we're talking about, I'm quite sure their banks built everything from scratch without taking into account what a few decades of use have taught European banks. It was also slower than is it today when introduced, at least in France (though mostly because connection was over dialup or GPRS).
  - peteretep 11y ago
    And with contactless, it's faster still...
- dalke 11y ago
  What you describe isn't the case here in 'dumb' Sweden. Eg, I put my card in while the grocery items are still being scanned. Nor do I recall a 30 second wait when visiting 'dumb' Norway, Denmark, Germany, or Switzerland.
- deanclatworthy 11y ago
  As has been pointed out several times in these comments, Americans appear to be living with their head above the clouds regarding these machines. in Finland all the machines are hooked up to 3G and initialised in the morning before customers arrive. It takes less than 2s for the the machine to ask for your pin and I'd say on average less than 2-3s to accept it. Tell me, what is the problem?
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Please try reading the article and the thread. TJ's put in the new machines and those machines have the constraints I described above. Europe, its ilk, and their terminals are completely irrelevant.
    - serge2k 11y ago
      > Europe, its ilk, and their terminals are completely irrelevant. Not really. It's a valid comparison to figure out what the cause of the problem actually is.
      - jsprogrammer 11y ago
        The only explanation that would be remotely plausibly acceptable was if some long-running encryption process was occurring between the card and the terminal. More likely it is just poor specifications and poor execution.
- sqldba 11y ago
  Here in Australia: * The cashier presses credit on the POS terminal. * It may take 1s for the logo to come up. You hold your card against the reader for ~1s. The icon changes while it's verifying which takes < ~5s.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    This was how it was until places put in new terminals that refuse swipes from chip cards. Instead, you have to insert the chip portion of your card into a slot (after waiting 10s for the prompt to appear [or it will error out]). Then, you must leave your card in the slot, untouched, for about 20s. The tap terminals have existed in the US for years. Usability was pretty much the same as the swipe method: fast and easy.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  If it's really taking 30 seconds to verify a card tx then without a doubt your internet connection and/or bank and/or reader hardware is incredibly poor.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Yes, as stated: the reader is incredibly poor. Also, yes, the banks suck.
- serge2k 11y ago
  It's not that slow.