5 ms·
McDonalds actually seems to have learned to take latency seriously. When their touch screen ordering systems were first deployed, the delay between tapping on
by bcrl 6mo ago
McDonalds actually seems to have learned to take latency seriously. When their touch screen ordering systems were first deployed, the delay between tapping on an item or button was quite noticeable. These days the systems respond nearly instantaneously. I'm very glad there are people inside such a large organization that pay attention to that aspect of usability.
Now if only every other website on the internet would learn that latency matters...
- rapind 6mo agoExcept they make you tap 2-3 times more than it takes to make your selections. That's business guys though, not the devs. Do you want to add one of [x]?... No. How about now, add one of [x]?... No. Do you want to round up your total to [n]?... No. Do you want to eat in, even though we'll still put it in a takeaway bag so this option is really just the equivalent of a close door button on an elevator in that it does nothing except placate you?... Yes.
- sowbug 6mo agoI'm sure these two behaviors depend on each other. Instantaneous response allows the company to spend more of your attention answering questions rather than staring at a spinner. If you've ever watched TV with someone who gets distracted and sets down the remote after each button press while Netflix's UI slowly loads, you know that three or four UI interactions can turn into a several-minute ordeal.
- b112 6mo agoI have been in elevators in which it does do something. I've timed the difference. This foul rumour must die.
- DrewADesign 6mo agoThey effectively don’t do anything in most elevators in the US during normal operation. The ADA requires elevator doors remain open at least 3-seconds. Usually, people-moving elevators are most efficient when doors close as quickly as possible, so they start closing exactly at 3 seconds. I’ve used elevators with less common use cases — huge ones in hospitals, freight elevators, hotel service elevators — that might be configured to stay open longer than the 3 second minimum, assuming people will push the door close button as soon as they’re ready.
- b112 6mo agoNothing you've said indicates why the button does nothing. I can enter an elevator is under a second and push the button. This is doubly faster when not waiting for the doors to open fully, effectively making my button push at 0 seconds from door full open. If you're saying "3 seconds is not long to wait, so it's the same as the button doing nothing", this is false, untrue, and I often use it. Alternatively, requiring elevator door to wait 3 seconds as a default does not negate someone overriding that. I've manipulated the button and seen timing differences. It does work. It does make a difference. Did you mean something else?
- DrewADesign 6mo ago> Nothing you've said indicates why the button does nothing. Let me expound a bit — The close-door button cannot override the ADA minimum 3-second open time… the door must remain open for at least 3 seconds no matter what you press. But, most are configured to automatically close at 3 seconds. So as soon as the door-close function is no longer overridden, the door starts closing anyway, so pressing the button has no effect. With the door-open button and door sensor, they generally start closing immediately when they’re not active, so since the doors are already closing, the door-close button has no effect. If the door-open button is configured to open the door more than momentarily, the door close button should function. If the elevator is designed to stay open longer than the 3-second period during which the door-close button is overridden, it will be available after the first 3 seconds. So if it’s configured to stay open for 10 seconds, the door-close button will be inactive for 3 seconds, but will start a door close, when pressed, from the 4th through the 10th second. At 10 seconds, the door will be closing anyway. If a regular people-moving elevator is configured to be capable of closing the door in less than 3 seconds, it’s out-of-code. Since professional elevator companies maintain and configure most (all?) up-to-code elevators, and they’re probably liable for them to some extent, I doubt that’s common. It’s not like I’ve studied it or anything though. I’m pretty sure that timing it out with a stopwatch would reveal that no matter what is happening, the door stays open for a minimum of 3 seconds. Anything beyond 3 seconds depends on how it’s configured, but most are configured to close as soon as they legally can.
- DrewADesign 6mo agoAnnoying, for sure, but at least it’s not an unpredictable 800 keystroke, zero agency, chatbot interaction.
- 1attice 6mo agoIt's choice exhaustion, a common dark pattern. You get worn down and that makes you more likely to spend more than you need
- toast0 6mo agoYeah, but there's a risk that people won't come back because it's exhausting. I ordered from the wrong location once, and it's fine, they don't work the order until you arrive, and they refund it at the end of the day, but they lost a sale because I was so frustrated that I just drove home without picking up food like I was expecting to. And the way prices are now, you need to order in the app if you want a chance at value, so if I don't have time to poke at the app, I won't go.
- Dylan16807 6mo agoWait, seriously? They make you show up before they start and the orders can't travel between locations? I've only used the app a couple times so I only knew the first half of that.
- toast0 6mo agoI mean... I could have asked, and they might have been able to transfer, but there's no user accessible way to make it happen, and you can't (or couldn't) make a new order while one was pending. But I was coming back from kid's hockey practice and tired and now mad at mcdonalds, so I wasn't going to wait in line to ask. I have ordered to the wrong Starbucks, where they do start your order when you place it, and they were able to see the order and remake it at the one I actually showed up at, but Starbucks is always super nice whenever anything goes wrong, even if when it's my fault, which it usually is. Not being able to start a new order is also great when you had a successful order that the app didn't notice and then you have to clear app data days later when you want to order again... but I think McDonalds may have added a button to just order anyway in the past not too long.
- jasomill 6mo agoInteresting. As far as I can tell, they're at least supposed to use location services to start the order when you're nearby. When the store isn't super busy my order is typically ready when I arrive, and I've ordered 10-15 minutes before arrival a few times and my orders weren't cold. Maybe this is what they're supposed to do, but the system and/or employees don't do it reliably. Or perhaps it's because I typically do counter pick-up, and almost always have a small (1-3 item) order. It makes sense that they wouldn't prep your order if you're just going to be waiting in a long drive thru line anyway, though this could obviously lead to further delays because they don't reliably have larger orders finished in the time it takes to get from the speaker to the pick up window.
- brcmthrowaway 6mo agoBet someone here worked on them
- janderson215 6mo agoProbably. Similarly, Walmart has a great eng org for a company of its size.
- dd8601fn 6mo agoReally? Walmart does some spectacularly stupid, costly, and obnoxiously customer hostile stuff.
- geerlingguy 6mo agoBut they do it with much uptime, and very low latency!
- janderson215 6mo agoI know this is tongue-in-cheek, but yes, all I was saying is their eng org. I'm not speaking on their Customer Service or business practices.
- ButlerianJihad 6mo agoWhen I temporarily lost access to my phone, I contacted Walmart dot Com Support. They solemnly informed me that they had no means of overriding MFA for my account or helping me to recover it without the phone. Support told me that I was better off abandoning the account and creating a new one. While I did recover my phone, I decided that it was best to simply stop doing business with Walmart, and I haven’t missed them one bit!
- vips7L 6mo agoDidn’t they start that from acquiring jet.com?
- altairprime 6mo agoMcDonald’s in the U.S. is targeting market segments that either have low-price cellular data plans or are operating cellular devices in cars where coverage is often worse (especially for travelers!), which requires minimum server latency since you have to turn around those data packets instantly in order to queue them into their customer’s lowest-priority on-the-pole cellular pipe. Thus why they continue to provide a series choices that have such a high round-trip cost of user interaction: everyone wants to customize, no one wants to suffer a complicated UI, so simple serial dialogs served at minimum server resources per request it is. I would hazard a guess that the process fervor they design into their kitchen operations means that internet ordering is shown within the same metrics dashboard as store ops.
- jtbayly 6mo agoI refuse to go to McDonalds anymore because they refuse to acknowledge you, won’t take your order, force you to use those stupid terminals.
- ranger_danger 6mo agoI actively seek out such establishments because I'm an introvert and I don't want to talk to people. Japan is a paradise in this way... an extremely large number of restaurants do not require interacting with a human to place your order.
- fracus 6mo agoI'm the same, although I understand OP's sentiment to a degree. I also like no interaction with someone who is potentially or visibly sick and contagious. That is why I never stand in the service line at the grocery store. It's always self serve only.
- axus 6mo agoAs a customer of McDonalds in both countries: the counter is much better in Japan, especially now. I was always proud of the American stores having lots of nice napkins, sauces, etc for self-service but we lost that years ago.
- jml7c5 6mo agoWhy do you want them to take your order if you have access to a terminal?
- SoftTalker 6mo agoBecause it's 10x faster. In can say "big mac meal" and be done while the kiosk ordering machine is still loading the first screen.
- lotsofpulp 6mo agoI prefer the machine because the order is correct 100% of the time. When I used to have someone take the order, I had to double check the receipt to make sure the order was correct.
- ranger_danger 6mo agoMy experience with them to this day is still abysmal... often have to touch 2 or 3 times to get it to register and there is still a noticeable delay, as if I'm (probably so) interacting with a slow/bloated webpage. The mobile app is even worse for me with added latency and surprising(ly delayed) large content changes that affect what you're trying to click on.
- qsi 6mo agoHere in Singapore the terminals work well! The latency has definitely gone down. Ironically the Japanese McDonald's website loads faster than the Singapore one... so they've got some work to do.
- fracus 6mo agoThey probably never wash them so there is this insulating layer of grease and grime on the screen that inhibits touch detection.
- ssl-3 6mo agoIf that's true, then their mobile app team must be both completely separate and isolated from all communications. Because it's really bad. And it's been bad for a really long time. When all I want is to order a cheap cup of coffee, I get to stare at a throbbing box of fries while it tries to figure that out. Get to the restaurant and signal my arrival? More throbbing fries. Sometimes the fries never stop throbbing and the only way to get away from them and onto the next step is to force-close the app and start it again. When I manage to accumulate enough points to order a free sandwich? "Sorry, something went wrong!" This leaves me with no sandwich, and no points. (I guess I was going to be disappointed no matter what -- maybe they're doing me a favor by fucking it up so bad that getting the food is impossible, since reaching the melancholy destination takes fewer steps this way.) Over the years I've used multiple phones, from multiple manufacturers, with multiple carriers. It's not me; the app is consistently bad. Oh. And speaking of carriers: Back when I had metered service, I used wifi where I could. The McDonald's near where I lived had free wifi, but their network had this app firewalled. It'd work anywhere but inside of the building where it was most useful. But, yeah: The touchscreen kiosks are a bit more responsive than they initially were. It's too bad that they're gored up with finger grease and other bodily effluences, though, because they barely work with the layer of filth that covers them.
- basch 6mo agotheir app has some very strange flow to it, i cant tell if it feels designed by committee or if there are just so many strange use cases that its somehow the least bad given some arbitrary constraints i cant begin to understand. even selecting my restaurant is a constant battle. the closest restaurant to my house as the bird flies is not the closest restaurant. even the closest by miles driven involves much more complication than the one i always want to pick. it constantly battles me that i have selected a suboptimal choice. maybe learn that when i am at home, i want to default to my preferred choice, every time, unless i say otherwise.
- ssl-3 6mo agoI tried to log into it just now to see which McDonald's it would select for me at home and whether it would be callous about changes. But when I touched the icon to open the app, a big M appeared on a bright red screen and then it died and returned to the home screen less than half a second later. (Good work, fellahs! Good work!)
- jerlam 6mo agoI remember the exact opposite of the McDonalds touch screen ordering systems. When they first came out, everything was snappy because it wasn't loading recommendations or additional tracking. There were a lot fewer customization options. Now, you click on something, and you wait a while, and then it asks you what you want to change and if you want to add these other suggested items. When you want to check out, it lags and then pops up another dialog asking if you want to add more items to your order.
- jimmydorry 6mo agoYet the Maccas app in Australia is atrocious for me. Takes >30secs to load the huge ad that pops-up before you can get to the menu. Close the ad and the menu takes another eternity, then inside each sub menu, you wait another eternity for the pictures to all load. Meanwhile, all of this content could just be downloaded in the background and cached for future loads... And the app continues to get worse each update. The checkout process used to be quick and responsive. They've since made it require additional clicks and take much longer.
- Barbing 6mo agoIs there anyone who uses the app and orders premium options and uses coupons that don't represent much of a discount... yet, the app STILL takes a long time to load? Causing delays for unprofitable customers. Any business is going to do it if they can. /tinfoil (Their margins shouldn't be this bad.)
- jimmydorry 6mo agoI don't want to touch their greasy in-store touch screens that thousands of other people touch. And those "deals" are way cheaper per user than large marketing campaigns, and probably more effective too. I wonder how slow you can make an app before a significant number of people will just order elsewhere? Give it a few more years of downgrades to the app, and I'll have reached it.
- Barbing 6mo agoThey more effective because they can sell our Big Mac consumption to our health insurance company? That is purely an assumption, by the way. Maybe someone tried to write a law once to prevent that. That's funny about it being bad enough, it just makes you want to leave. And to anyone reading- be careful with the McDonald's spyware, by the way. You might have it for lunch. Then by dinner time, see a little icon on your phone and realize they've been tracking your precise location all day.
- 7bit 6mo agoI stopped using those because I'm faster ordering at the cashier. The delay was awfully long with 3-5 seconds. It's now improved but 2-3 seconds is still ridiculous. I wouldn't say they've learning anything. That's probably just a side effect of something they aren't even aware about. Germany btw
- postepowanieadm 6mo agoI'm not sure - their kiosks in Poland are horrible, nagging you to order more. Event hardware is broken, as your recipe with order number tends to get stuck in the machine. What makes me wonder what our Fiscus thinks about it.
- lmpdev 6mo agoI repaired some of ~10 years ago (Australia) Just low end uncustomised NUCs overheating behind the screen No idea if that’s still the case
- kelzier 6mo agoHave you used their app though? It shows an offer on opening, that must animate in and out in such a janky way, when really you just want your PIN code to gain points for the order. It's a horribly frustrating UX.