13 ms·

I vividly remember using a kiosk to order a sandwich at a gas station 3 years ago... Not because the sandwich was great, not because it had a great logo, or a g

I vividly remember using a kiosk to order a sandwich at a gas station 3 years ago... Not because the sandwich was great, not because it had a great logo, or a great name... The INSTANT I hit the button to complete the order, the built in printer almost spat the ticket at me. I ordered a second sandwich just so I could get a video of that happening again. Edit: Just found and uploaded the video :) https://youtu.be/TX_-dXIpPvA https://youtu.be/TX_-dXIpPvA Edit2: looks like it was a soda, not a second sandwich.

grishka 6y ago
And then over here we have a fast food chain whose kiosks are just laughably slow. Scrolling stutters, animations are laggy, and taps take what feels like a second to register. Burgers are okay tho.
rmorey 6y ago
as a frequent patron, I read your comment and KNEW it had to be Wawa!
domano 6y ago
Wow, even the printer is fast in itself.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway81523 6y ago
  That's a very normal Seiko (or similar) receipt printer. I spent a lot of time programming them. Humorously, the programming manual is marked "confidential" (I guess to make it hard for anyone to make compatible printers), but there are copies of it all over the web, and there are plenty of compatible printers ;). The POS app that I worked on (not related to the one shown in the video) also went to pretty serious lengths to get rid of the pause between the user pressing "enter" and the receipt coming out. The store operators rightfully insisted on this, because they wanted to keep the checkout lines moving as fast as possible. I liked those printers and remember wanting one for myself even though I had no use for it. They start at around $200 and take up space, so I managed to resist.
culopatin 6y ago
I wish I had that at work. We have self serve kiosks in the cafeteria and my muscle memory has made me faster than the display. I pretty much operate it in a constant loading-icon state now. The part I actually wait for is the 2 seconds for the printer.
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
Holy shit! That's like the Rolls-Royce of kiosks. I wish car infotainment systems had this level of responsiveness...
skinkestek 6y ago
Wow, someone in HR at work should find that dev and get him/her to work for us :-)
jcims 6y ago
Probably because there is a financial incentive for speed. :)
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  And yet so many are slow as mud
mritchie712 6y ago
this is to be expected, wawa exudes excellence in all it does.
dljsjr 6y ago
When I saw NJ in the video description I knew it was a Wawa before I even hit play. Those kiosks are their bread and butter (no pun intended).
castlecrasher2 6y ago
That's amazing, thanks for sharing.
2almalki 6y ago
I would also say the Costco self-serve food kiosk order system are fast as well
- Solocomplex 6y ago
  They do have a very small menu though.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I don't know how Costco does it, but if you use tap to pay or insert your card into the chip reader while the cashier is scanning your items, at the end when the cashier presses the button to indicate they are finished scanning, it instantly says "approved" and prints a receipt. Costco is the only place where I've seen this. I don't understand how it gets an authorization for any amount that fast, since it can't know the total while the cashier is still scanning items, and it's Costco, so it could be anywhere from $50 to $5,000 so surely it's getting the authorization after the transaction finishes? The flow is almost perfect. I have them scan my Costco membership, I use tap to pay on the card reader, then I or 2nd cashier move to organizing the items into the cart, and then the cashier hands me a receipt with basically zero wasted time.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    Walmart sometimes gives me the "approved remove card" notification BEFORE the cashier has finished ringing up the purchase; I assume they've made a deal that lets them do that.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Costco has an advantage over everyone else -- they already know who you are before your purchase is complete. By scanning your membership card, they already have your average purchase profile. They actually ask the credit card processor to approve you for $avg + X%, so as long as your purchase comes in lower than that, you've already been approved. If you make a really big purchase it will take a little longer, because they go back for a second auth for the bigger amount. It's also why you'll see some people making $700+ purchases without having to sign anything -- because Costco already knows they do that every week and pay the bill on time so they assume part of the risk.
percentcer 6y ago
Damn I miss Wawa
bdickason 6y ago
This is amazing!! In a world full of 'please wait for your receipt' and dot matrix noises... this feels totally magical. Thanks for sharing this, it's crazy how much super fast experiences still surprise us.
- billti 6y ago
  Interestingly... too fast can be a problem too. A prime example is this site, Hacker News, on a really fast browser. I'll often sit there waiting for a navigation to load, until I realize it had already loaded (to a similar looking page), just so fast I didn't notice the transition.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    That’s why animations are important contrary to what many say here in the comments (and I agree that putting them here and there just for the sake of it is bad). They give “life” to a virtual object. For example I really like tiling window managers, but they could use a really fast animation for window switches because the changing number at the top of the screen doesn’t say as much as movement to my primate brain.

grishka 6y ago

And then over here we have a fast food chain whose kiosks are just laughably slow. Scrolling stutters, animations are laggy, and taps take what feels like a second to register. Burgers are okay tho.

rmorey 6y ago

as a frequent patron, I read your comment and KNEW it had to be Wawa!

domano 6y ago

Wow, even the printer is fast in itself.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaway81523 6y ago
That's a very normal Seiko (or similar) receipt printer. I spent a lot of time programming them. Humorously, the programming manual is marked "confidential" (I guess to make it hard for anyone to make compatible printers), but there are copies of it all over the web, and there are plenty of compatible printers ;). The POS app that I worked on (not related to the one shown in the video) also went to pretty serious lengths to get rid of the pause between the user pressing "enter" and the receipt coming out. The store operators rightfully insisted on this, because they wanted to keep the checkout lines moving as fast as possible. I liked those printers and remember wanting one for myself even though I had no use for it. They start at around $200 and take up space, so I managed to resist.

culopatin 6y ago

I wish I had that at work. We have self serve kiosks in the cafeteria and my muscle memory has made me faster than the display. I pretty much operate it in a constant loading-icon state now. The part I actually wait for is the 2 seconds for the printer.

layoutIfNeeded 6y ago

Holy shit! That's like the Rolls-Royce of kiosks. I wish car infotainment systems had this level of responsiveness...

skinkestek 6y ago

Wow, someone in HR at work should find that dev and get him/her to work for us :-)

jcims 6y ago

Probably because there is a financial incentive for speed. :)

therealdrag0 6y ago
And yet so many are slow as mud

mritchie712 6y ago

this is to be expected, wawa exudes excellence in all it does.

dljsjr 6y ago

When I saw NJ in the video description I knew it was a Wawa before I even hit play. Those kiosks are their bread and butter (no pun intended).

castlecrasher2 6y ago

That's amazing, thanks for sharing.

2almalki 6y ago

I would also say the Costco self-serve food kiosk order system are fast as well

Solocomplex 6y ago
They do have a very small menu though.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
I don't know how Costco does it, but if you use tap to pay or insert your card into the chip reader while the cashier is scanning your items, at the end when the cashier presses the button to indicate they are finished scanning, it instantly says "approved" and prints a receipt. Costco is the only place where I've seen this. I don't understand how it gets an authorization for any amount that fast, since it can't know the total while the cashier is still scanning items, and it's Costco, so it could be anywhere from $50 to $5,000 so surely it's getting the authorization after the transaction finishes? The flow is almost perfect. I have them scan my Costco membership, I use tap to pay on the card reader, then I or 2nd cashier move to organizing the items into the cart, and then the cashier hands me a receipt with basically zero wasted time.
- bombcar 6y ago
  Walmart sometimes gives me the "approved remove card" notification BEFORE the cashier has finished ringing up the purchase; I assume they've made a deal that lets them do that.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Costco has an advantage over everyone else -- they already know who you are before your purchase is complete. By scanning your membership card, they already have your average purchase profile. They actually ask the credit card processor to approve you for $avg + X%, so as long as your purchase comes in lower than that, you've already been approved. If you make a really big purchase it will take a little longer, because they go back for a second auth for the bigger amount. It's also why you'll see some people making $700+ purchases without having to sign anything -- because Costco already knows they do that every week and pay the bill on time so they assume part of the risk.

percentcer 6y ago

Damn I miss Wawa

bdickason 6y ago

This is amazing!! In a world full of 'please wait for your receipt' and dot matrix noises... this feels totally magical. Thanks for sharing this, it's crazy how much super fast experiences still surprise us.

billti 6y ago
Interestingly... too fast can be a problem too. A prime example is this site, Hacker News, on a really fast browser. I'll often sit there waiting for a navigation to load, until I realize it had already loaded (to a similar looking page), just so fast I didn't notice the transition.
- kaba0 6y ago
  That’s why animations are important contrary to what many say here in the comments (and I agree that putting them here and there just for the sake of it is bad). They give “life” to a virtual object. For example I really like tiling window managers, but they could use a really fast animation for window switches because the changing number at the top of the screen doesn’t say as much as movement to my primate brain.