this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 68 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Automatic opening doors but they don't open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button. This is the optimal solution as the door doesn't open needlessly but still allows for ease of access.

Ordering machines, where all your menu options are clearly listed and priced. Pressing on a combo of buttons will print a receipt which you can sit down and show the staff/cook your order.

Water (hot and cold) tapped straight to your dining table for self serve drinks.

Unfortunately becoming less applicable with the smartphone domination finally reaching Japan, but their flip phone technology.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

taco bell in particular is embracing the kiosks and it's wonderful. they have signs in the lobby saying 'order at the kiosk' even. and why wouldn't you? why do people in the US have this pig-like stubbornness where they must have a human stand there and 'PeRsONaLIze tHE iNtERacTion' or some shit

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

Every US McDonald's I've been to for the last...5+ years has had the kiosk system.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (4 children)

There was an article published last year, maybe the year before, where they tested the touch screen kiosks in McDonald's. Every single one of them has traces of faeces on it.

Even if that wasn't true, it takes me significantly less time to tell someone my order than to scroll through however many sub menus the restaurant has decided to put their food into, and then select the options for each item and add it to my basket, then check out.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Everything has traces of faeces on it, this fixation on it seems irrational when you put it into context. The burger meat comes from a dead animal that spent it's life wandering in a field and trampling it's own shit. The fries come from the root of a plant grown in the dirt. The bun is made from wheat which was probably infested with mice. You yourself are a biological machine that turns food into energy and discards the waste. Your body has a tube filled with faeces right now.

Yes, we try to keep waste separate from food, but the world is not a clean-room.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You also have a skeleton inside you. The body is a terrifying place.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

It's amazing that there's still room in there for the two wolves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

All of those things are cleaned before being consumed. The touch screen menus are one of the last things you touch before touching and eating your food.

The world may not be a clean room, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to deliberately interact with someone else's faeces, especially when I'm about to eat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Hope you're not touching cash

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Strangely enough, you've made me realise that I haven't for a while. Not a deliberate thing, it's just that everything I've bought in person recently has been with a contactless method.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Doesn't matter. There's feces everywhere. When you smell a bad bathroom, a fart, your own poop it is because it is in the air all around you. You're nose is actually detecting the particles of shit in your nostrils. It is on your clothes, on your skin, on your face, on your hands.

The test used to detect trace amount of feces would likely find feces on door knobs, stove dials, clothes or anything else often touched in your house right now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Please be one of those people that washes their hands instead of this functioning as some broad, sweeping excuse because "it's already everywhere." I don't know how else fecal matter would be expected to travel to a stove dial.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I wash my hands all the time. I'm not voluntarily gross. The tests will find trace amounts but if you don't wash your hands after going to the bathroom, you are a gross person passing on loads of bacteria that is exponentially more than the testing will find.

I appreciate the distinction though. There are definitely people that live like that. There used to be a guy at a place I used to work who used to dig in those big trail mix jars people put out sometimes instead of dumping them into something or even dumping them into their hands. Once I was in the bathroom (washing my hands) and saw him leave the stall and just walk straight out. Now I can't see those without thinking about that. I'll never touch those things again.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That's because there's feces on every person all over them. Your nose works because it detects chemicals of something. If you smell feces it is because it is inside of your nose. Feces is in the air. Smell a fart? It's now on you. Bathroom smells like shit? It is in the air around you and on you.

Just about 20 years ago when all those soda fountain dispensers tested always had feces detected on them, it wasn't because some bandit was going around the world smearing shit on them every day, it is because it is always every where.

According to the BBC article that talks about the McDonalds touch screen, they say the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

As someone that has to work in very close proximity to feces, smelling it is a good sign. Not smelling it is the alarm bell.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I didn't even consider that, America is just filled with 'people' who barely even qualify as such. it's no wonder we can't have nice things.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Having to crawl through multiple menus to order is not that big of a deal for restaurants. They don't value your time, they value their staff time (because they have to pay for it). There is probably very little ongoing cost to double the number of order kiosks while every additional human taking orders needs to be paid minimum wage. The restaurant owner watches with hate as their money slowly melts away while you decide if you want pickles, fried onions, and jalapenos on your burger.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's a good point. I could be in the restaurant for an hour trying to order, and as long as there are other kiosks available, it wouldn't make a difference to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is not a good point. This is just a company making us their unpaid employees.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Yes, that's the point that TAG made. It's something that I hadn't considered, and it's a good point.

The fact that it's something shitty that businesses do doesn't affect the fact that TAG made a good point.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

i just want to pay cash, otherwise i prefer kiosks... but i see a future of hostile, nagging UI design...
like at some stores self checkout, you have to click 80 different confirmations and give your phone number, email and social security number...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

The auto kiosks in Japan take cash and they are also mechanical and not touch-screen based (at least in most stores). They are tactile buttons. :D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That's why you have GDPR.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Because I don't want to be bombarded with ads and "did you consider this offer" shit and take 5 minutes to use some usability nightmare? Because I do not want to touch a greasy screen that 362 people used today without washing their hands after taking a shit? Because I do not support corpo greed that will not rest until every employee has been fired?

"BUt I LiKe tOucHy fLaSHy SCreeNy!!"

What are you, morons?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Would you like fries with that?"

"Would you like to supersize that?"

"We have an offer on..."

"Paying by card? Type your pin into that well used machine. Cash? OK hand me the piece of paper that have touched hundreds of hands and maybe nostrils"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Maybe my people are bad at their jobs but my fast food people just take the order without any real upsell most of the time. PIN is only for debit. I almost never have to actually touch payment controls these days. NFC tap and away.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Why should I have to do everything myself when I'm at a commercial establishment? Why is interaction with a human a bad thing? I absolutely hate self checkout for the same reasons. Quality of service is valuable and humans benefit from interaction.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

If you have to push a button, does it really count as an automatic door?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I guess you have a point. What I meant is that it'll still slide open (like an automatic door does) but you push a button that has a similar feel to a door bell. So, still very accessible and automatic!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Oh yeah, I agree, just needless pedantry on my part :-)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Since I don't speak Japanese, it was definitely a much preferred setup that made things very simple for me when I visited.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Water (hot and cold) tapped straight to your dining table for self serve drinks.

This in particular sounds awesome, speaking as a heavy water drinker who always feels like a bit of a heel having to pester busy wait staff to come over and refill my water glass a bunch of times.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I love places where you can just get it yourself. Rare here in North America, but all over the place in Korea

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

I often see buildings in Japan that have a manual sliding door followed by either a push button or proximity automatic door. If I am going to have to open one door myself, I might as well open both. If one is automatic, the other might as well be too.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button. This is the optimal solution as the door doesn’t open needlessly but still allows for ease of access.

Ordering machines, where all your menu options are clearly listed and priced. Pressing on a combo of buttons will print a receipt which you can sit down and show the staff/cook your order

I see those all the time over here in my European country.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

The hot and cold water thing is not common at all. A few sushi places and bars have it. But it's quite rare tbh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button.

I think it would be cool to have a hybrid system where you can wave/nod/bow to a sensor to activate it, but also implement an open standard frequency that can trigger it so people with reduced mobility can mount a transmitter on a wheelchair/cane etc. or just use their cellphone. Would eliminate having any external equipment that would be exposed to weather or vandalism and is one less common surface for the public to have to touch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The need to push a button everyone else pushed, is how you get covid :p

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I work in a pharma research facility, so people can have literally any disease or chemical on their hands, so we have a lot of doors with hand wave sensors.

Just wag your mitts in front of it, and the door opens. They're on the wall a few steps before the door, so the door is usually open by the time you get to it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I work in a hospital, we use these long vertical elbow buttons or rfid readers with a badge which is also touchless.

And if I need to push a button like in elevators, I use the knuckle of my ring finger.

Some even have this little touch tool on their Keychain to touch screens or buttons.