In ‘Victor Meldrew‘ Mode, which is all too often these days, I have come across the ‘one too many’ problem of sheer idiocy demonstrated in mass market design solutions, and decided that it might be time for a new blog theme: Bad Design.
The instigator of this line of thought, and therefore intended victim of it’s focus, is Costa Coffee, and my observation of the ‘ridiculous’ design points (read failings) of the vending machines they distribute throughout the UK retail space for franchises, supermarkets, and so forth.
Of course, as a professional Software Engineer, it is not sufficient to simply analyse and report problems, but I must also provide constructive solutions, and this I will do!
The Scenario
This morning, as is our wont, after walking our dogs we stop for our regular(ish) coffee hit. Now don’t get me wrong, Costa Coffee is ‘Costa’… not the best, not the worst, but ok enough.
After recieving my Caramel Cappuccino (thankyouverymuch) and forcing me to ‘rate’ it out of 5 stars before allowing me to request the next drink, it began dispensing my wife’s normal Cappuccino.
One squirt of hot water into the dispensation, and it began emitting an ear piercing regular beep every second, then promptly stopped dispensing. This high decibel beep did not however.
It went on. And on. And on.
The staff in the shop were helpful, but had no idea what was wrong so had to open the machine. This resulted in several of the small, regular and large cups being forcibly ejected from the front of the machine, as the entire front opens as a door, a door through which the cup ‘poppers’ operate.
The already ear piercing beeping now doubled in volume. And would not stop. The machine had coffee beans in the full grinder. It had milk. It had half-filled bags for all the syrups it supported. It had water supply. It (obviously) had power. Yet still the beeping, which led to myself and the bemused shop assistant having to shout at each other to be heard between winces at the ear drum pounding beeps.
At length, I was had no choice but to depart with just my own coffee, tinnitus, sore ear drums, and a slightly miffed, coffee-less, wife.
Bad Design: Analysis
1) Ear Shattering Beeping Noises
WTF? Ok, beeping is useful, if there is no other medium to communicate errors (I’m coming to that). However, painfully loud noises in the work place are a Health and Safety violation, and I’m pretty sure from past experience that this beep definitely breaks the UK regulations on noise in the work place. That beep will definitely lead to hearing loss.
Solution: Quieter beep please. No expense required, and in fact saves electrical energy. FTW
2) Stupid Door Design
Opening the door requires you to remove all (ALL) the cups from the ‘poppers’? Really? Is this the work of an imbecile?
Solution: Do not create ‘work’ (removing the cups first, or tidying them up afterward). Instead, hinge the door so the cup ‘poppers’ are not part of the door itself. Perhaps slightly more expensive per unit, but come on…
3) Failing to provide a meaningful error
THERE IS A TOUCH SCREEN ON THE MACHINE! Here’s an idea! Why not display an error message?? Like “123: Out of Milk” or “234: Grinder Jam” Clearly the machine can detect the error and BEEP loud enough to deafen someone, so clearly it can use the sophisticated display medium to show a bit of meaningful context!
And yes, the touchscreen itself may fail, so having a beeping error code is just fine and dandy in tandem. But see point 1!
Solution: Use the hardware you already have! And get software engineers that actually know what they are doing. Probably more expensive, as you pay for what you get. See maksw.com for a recommended software provider 😉 A one off extra cost for software divided by all machines which use it (so almost zero cost), and probably one extra bit of wire in each machine.
4) WHY FORCE CUSTOMERS TO RATE A VENDING MACHINE?
Why? Are Costa really that insecure that they can’t just use vending statistics to see how popular their machine is? Does the vending machine have emotive AI and I may hurt it’s feelings if it serves me excellent, piping hot coffee and I fail to rate it highly before walking away? Does it post my rating to social media to show it’s friends how good it is and how much people like it?
Why must I rate it to order another drink?
I thought these vending machines were for ‘fast service’, but no, instead the queue of people behind me have to wait while I ‘rate’ my vending machine for the dispensation of a coffee… that’s those that can still hear after being deafened by the beeping, and can be bothered to wait for someone who has no clue how to diagnose mystery, unknown errors which the machine knows about but won’t reveal and somehow fix it so the queue of customers can get a coffee and be forced to rate it ‘1 star’ for making them wait and being deafened.
Solution: Rating a vending machine? Really? Remove this stupidity. Cheaper.
5) Sugar/Chocolate Dust/sachet ‘squirrel holes’
Ok, this is just nuts (pun intended). One hundred or so packets of sugar, or chocolate, that are pesky little shiny paper beasts and do not ‘stick’ to anything… then put them in a horizontal container without an ‘end’ so that they form an unstable pile. Then expect someone to remove just one of them.
It’s like playing Jenga with blocks of oil coated teflon instead of wood. Remove one sachet in the barely stable pile, and they all start slipping about and (if unlucky and the pile has been stuffed by an over-enthusiastic shop assistant) you get an avalanche of sachets which – fortunately/unfortunately – largely end up in the rubbish bin hole directly underneath. Great ‘waste’ of perfectly usable sachets there.
Solution: Angle these containers so the back of the container is lower than the ‘entrance’. Miniscule cost option, cost saving by removing the loss / waste of avalanched (made-up-verb) sachets going in the bin.
Summary
There you go. A much improved customer AND franchise store experience, for almost NO extra net cost. Amazing.
Costa! and all vending machine manufacturers! Pay heed!
🙂