5 ms·

This might be a case where a kiosk touchscreen is better. I've used them in-store. It's not a bad system, plus you would pay there instead of "pull up to the fi

• Waterluvian 2y ago
  The only time I dislike these kiosks is when they’re inexplicably laggy and horrible to trigger interactions. How does that happen?! It’s at least 2008.
  • SkyPuncher 2y ago
    I’ve found using my knuckle helps immensely. Still slow, but touches register more consistently.
    • lozf 2y ago
      And you don't then use that knuckle to pick up food, and eat with. Much cleaner.
  • yetihehe 2y ago
    Because they wait for corporate server half the world away logging every click through crappy 2g connection before they can advance to next screen. How I know? I made some telemetric devices working on 2g connections, trying to optimise the hell out of it (other hardware vendors look at you funny when you tell them that your devices use only 2MB/month). Minimum response time was about 1.5s, 20s was still pretty normal.
• Severian 2y ago
  The biggest challenge to this is weather. Do you really want to roll down your window and get soaked in a rainstorm to pick a #1 with a diet coke? Most drive-thrus I've ever seen (Ohio, US) have zero cover and you are completely exposed to whatever mother nature wants to throw at you. Even the service window itself may have a tiny 24" awning that barely helps. In fact in my experience during rain it makes it worse as you get runoff right on top of the vehicle since they don't have rain gutters.
  • soco 2y ago
    I would guess - and correct me if I'm wrong - that building a cover over that window was much cheaper than all this exercise they're trying. I mean low-tech solutions don't become invalid just because AI.
    • Suzuran 2y ago
      Of course they do, the AI allows us to gouge the customers out of so much more. You must be new to this capitalism thing.
    • raverbashing 2y ago
      Yes but the top priced MBA consultants at very expensive "big 4" companies would have never thought of that
      • ethbr1 2y ago
        Oh, they definitely thought of that. They were no doubt just told by their boss, and their boss's boss, to 'prove that McDonald's is using AI.'
  • jjallen 2y ago
    So cover them. Not sure how this could be so hard
    • imglorp 2y ago
      I bet they get tired of overheight vehicles smashing them. The few detracting from the many as usual?
      • JohnFen 2y ago
        I've seen lots of fast food places where there is covering. They avoid this problem by installing thick steel tubing in front of the covering so overheight vehicles hit that instead.
  • 2y ago
• michaelt 2y ago
  The good thing about voice is customers who aren't good enough at driving to get close to the speaker can just yell. Can we expect 100,000 customers per year to get within touching distance of a touchscreen, without hitting it?
  • rpdillon 2y ago
    Drive-through ATMs seem to work.
    • FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      No. People just need cash desperately enough to deal with the bad situation. You aren't going to get frustrated with an ATM so much to switch banks. Everyday I see people need to open their car door and half lean out to reach the screen. But what is option, drive away and not have money?
      • falcor84 2y ago
        > people need to open their car door and half lean out to reach the screen Couldn't we just have the screen move towards the user, using a basic proximity sensor? We've had car wash systems adapt to the car's size for quite a few years now, so it should be a relatively cheap solution, no?
        • JohnFen 2y ago
          > it should be a relatively cheap solution, no? I really doubt it would be cheap. As soon as you bring motors and the electronics to control them into the mix, you're going to have an increased rate of of failure. Even if the initial install is inexpensive (which I doubt), the maintenance costs would increase a lot.
• abirch 2y ago
  Or an app. https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/mobile-order https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/mobile-order simply select what you want, have your favorites saved and go. When I had my first blackberry I envisioned that you'd be able to order everything there.
  • crote 2y ago
    Apps are a huge dealbreaker for anyone who isn't a frequent customer. They are are a huge hassle on first use, pretty much guaranteed to be privacy-invading, and won't stop nagging you with annoying notifications. Ordering a "big mac with fries and a coke" at the drive-thru window takes less time than reading this comment. Why would anyone want to spend five minutes installing an app, creating an account, figuring out how the app works, and finally placing an order?
    • ipaddr 2y ago
      Some people don't speak english well. Others think installing an app and pressing hamburger icon is easier I think I agree.
      • FrustratedMonky 2y ago
        They do have an app that helps with that. That is small percentage of customers. The argument is don't force all, 100% of customers to install an app, because it gets frustrating, and then you loose some percentage of customers that just walk away to order somewhere easier.
    • SirMaster 2y ago
      I don't know, the apps seem pretty seamless to me these days. I sign in to the apps with SSO (usually Apple, sometimes Google), so I don't need to "make" an account. And I pay with Apple Pay which is already set up in my phone too.
      • belthesar 2y ago
        Cognitive load for installing "yet another app" is pretty real. It doesn't matter how easy or seamless the experience is, part of the value for an app is to make it easier for repeat customers to use their service, and make them sticky. That starts with wanting to buy from them in the first place though. If I'm on a road trip, and I need a quick meal, and my choices are "buy from place that makes me use their app" or "buy from place that doesn't make me use their app", I'm gonna choose the option that is more convenient to me, which is, the one that doesn't make me download anything, sign up for an account, and pester the hell out of me 2 hours after I have already forgotten about that particular fast food joint to let me know if that if I only buy 39 more Big Macs that I can get a free small fry. I don't really want fast food to begin with. The food quality at any vendor has continuously gone downhill (or my standards have raised, could be some combination therein). If they want any hope of capturing my business still, they'll only get it if they keep that process as frictionless as possible.
• mrtksn 2y ago
  I would prefer jobs like burger flipping getting automated instead, because when the ordering lacks human touch it feels like getting served at the animal feeder. Although I use the kiosk often, I'm not happy about it. Automating the jobs that humans are good at and pushing people to do repetitive soul wrenching jobs that machines should de better is the wrong path IMHO. The human at the counter sets the tone and the mood, which is part of the eating. That's true even at fast food mega chains even when the order taking employees follow a script and do it time after time.
  • HelloMcFly 2y ago
    > when the ordering lacks human touch it feels like getting served at the animal feeder. While not too dissimilar, I like to think of it as ordering something from the replicator like in Star Trek.
    • mrtksn 2y ago
      haha that's a better mental image
      • ethbr1 2y ago
        Does anyone think to ask the replicator how it feels about repeatedly materializing thé, earl gris, chaud? They do not. :(
        • Night_Thastus 2y ago
          "Make it yourself!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9G2i8XWEOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9G2i8XWEOI
  • jagged-chisel 2y ago
    The best thing about touchscreens and apps is that I don't have to worry about the frontline human and the kitchen human misunderstanding my custom request. Now it's down to just the kitchen human, and they tend to make fewer mistakes it seems. As far as the human at the counter setting the tone and mood: I have had very few fast food interactions where this human made it a positive experience. "Meh" at best, and often not-good to bad.
• vundercind 2y ago
  If it’s like the ordering kiosks in the store, it’ll take 2x-5x as long to order as just telling someone what you want. Even more, for people unfamiliar with it or who aren’t comfortable with computer interfaces. Not good for drive-through throughput.
  • gampleman 2y ago
    Except you could have a bunch of them so multiple vehicles could be ordering in parallel.
  • brookst 2y ago
    Those kiosks are a master class in bad UI/UX. Just to start your order, you have to tell it (twice!) that you don’t want to log in. And where Amazon “pioneered” one-click checkout, what, 20 years ago? Those kiosks have a path like view cart -> checkout -> decline upsells -> don’t use app to pay -> choose credit card -> enter table number -> tap card -> choose receipt. Each one of those is a whole new screen. On a 40”-ish monitor! It is insane, and could easily be one screen with a couple of options. And just tapping a card should checkout and pay at any time. Not a fan of McDonald’s but I wanted to see what they were doing with self serve tech. Nothing good, it turns out.
    • vundercind 2y ago
      My first experience with one was just trying to order a large black coffee. Took me probably three full minutes. Would have been, I dunno, maybe 20 seconds with a register and a human taking the order. Another case like self checkouts of “automation” in the form of making the customer do more work than it took a paid worker to accomplish the same thing, but not actually automating a damn thing.
    • pwg 2y ago
      > you have to tell it (twice!) that you don’t want to log in. That's the result of the advertising department desperately wanting to track you for their metrics. > Each one of those is a whole new screen. On a 40”-ish monitor! It is insane, and could easily be one screen with a couple of options. This was most likely the result of some UI designer fearing that they would scare away too many folks with choice fatigue if they put all the options on a single screen all at once. Sadly they forgot to add a button for "I'm a technically adept user who would like a single screen with all options please" to let those of us who would not be scared away by that complexity select that version as an option.
• JohnFen 2y ago
  I loathe those ordering kiosks. Having them in the drive-through would make me even less likely to go there. Which would probably be a good thing.
  • Tepix 2y ago
    I think McDonalds did a pretty good job with theirs. What is it you don't like about them? The upselling?
    • JohnFen 2y ago
      Mostly, they're clumsy to use. It takes me much longer to place an order with one of those than to just tell a person what I want. They give me no benefit and make my experience worse. Especially when I've mistakenly chosen the wrong thing. I also dislike having to use a screen rather that interacting with a person for this sort of thing in the first place, but that's personal preference rather than anything about the kiosk system in particular.
      • Tepix 2y ago
        I think they do a great job telling me what's available and what the options are. Much better than standing at the counter and reading distant displays while talking to a cashier.
    • rchaud 2y ago
      Those giant touchscreens are a petri dish for every germ imaginable. McDonald's are open 24 hours with all kinds of people tapping away on them. There's no way the screens are cleaned more than a couple of times a day.
      • Tepix 2y ago
        You could put an antibacterial coating on them or shower them with UV light. Door handles are the same thing, just worse. Besides, the world is full of germs, in fact you would die without them. They are no big deal.