Self-checkout service

This was a one-week group project aimed at redesigning self-checkout service that will foster control in retail environments. Group consisted of Hajin Choi, Karl Nieberding, Jill Zhou, Wei Zhou, and myself.

We started off with Affinity Diagramming to set our focus.

With this, we decided to set initial focus on personal assistance, bagging, and produce products. With those in mind, each of us went to do field study at differnt places that offer self-checkouts already to validate our focus and look for any other problems. We interviewed and observed shoppers, and some of us also tried the self-checkout service ourselves.

We found problems that relate to different areas such as selecting a lane to use, preparing to scan items, scanning and bagging items, and paying. Based on our findings, we narrowed down our scope to self-checkout systems in grocery stores (Specifically, Giant Eagle).

Modeling a customer’s experience in the current system helped us map out what the problematic areas are.

Current Model at Giant Eagle grocery store

Current model of customer self-checkout process at Giant Eagle

Some of the problems we observed include (more details in the model above):

Negative expectations about self-checkout service
People ignore rules regarding full vs. express lanes.
There is no way convenient to return unwanted items.
There is limited and uncomfortable space for scanning and bagging.
Card payment device is disconnected from the main interface.

At this point, we proposed a new model that will change customer’s entire experience from entrance until exit. This model works to accommodate as many of the problems we found during user research and in our modeling of the current process.

Proposed Model