// le freqout

For this part of our observation exercise, I was directed to take extensive notes on some sort of device that people interact with in their daily lives. I chose to focus on Whole Foods’ system for queuing people in line at their Union Square location.

What is the setting? What is the physical orientation of the person (sitting, standing, etc)? What does the person physically do in the course of the interaction? How many steps does it take? How many times is the person listening to the device? How many times is the device “listening” to the person? What’s the balance of that time? As much as possible, try not to describe the person’s intention, just their action. Imagine you were entirely unaware of the social context of the interaction, as if you were an extraterrestrial alien, seeing this for the first time. Describe the interaction in your writing on these terms. What details do you notice that you previously overlooked? What parts of the transaction seem fluid or effortless? What parts seem to take the most effort? What parts seem the most awkward or strained?

Closer in nature to a train station than your run-of-the-mill I-will-stroll-through-this-aisle- which-should-I-get-Jiffy’s-or-Skippy neighborhood supermarket, if you don’t know what you are getting, get out of the way.  This is no regular supermarket.  This is a supermarket in Manhattan.  Whole Foods thinks it can improve the hectic urban shopping experience by reducing the amount of time (and therefore, the stress associated with it) of waiting in line.  To that end, some stores, such as the one in Union Square, have begun implementing “queue management” techniques and devices to help streamline the flow of traffic and ultimately provide a more positive customer experience.  I hope to explain a little bit about this system in the paragraphs to come. As one makes his or her way towards the exit of the store, he or she is confronted with an array of elastic movie (or airport)-style partitions that separate into five channels. This is the area where people in one long line are siphoned into five smaller lines.   

Above this area there is a large 52 (or so) inch flat-screen LCD screen.  It is positioned between the partitioned-off area and the rows of registers and is low enough that one does not have to crane their necks to get a good view of its display.   Beyond the waiting area and the LCD screen there are six rows of cash registers, manned (or womanned?) by eager and happy Whole Foods employees.  Each row, with the exception of the last one by the exit door (see diagram above) has about 7 or so registers in it.  In addition to the usual cash register station fare (cash register, counter space, bagging area), each payment station has a small elegantly designed lamp held up several feet in the air above the cash register by a post.

As people get ready to approach the cash registers, they must choose one of the five slots for a line and find their place in line behind the last person.  There is a Whole Foods employee standing at the front of the line(s) who makes sure that people pick empty lines if there are any available.  Large amounts of people are split and separated by these nylon separators as they wait for the person in front of them to move.  Above each line there is a colored square piece.  As they wait, the can look up at the LCD screen.  The LCD screen is split into five sections colored (from left to right): red, white, blue, yellow, and green.  These sections in the LCD correspond with the colors and order of the squares that hang above each line position.  When the person reaches the front of the line they look up at the LCD screen.  Numbers fall from the top of the screen to fall in place in the middle of the vertical colored bars.  One number falls at a time into one of the five slots.  It stays there for 8 seconds, then falls down off the screen.  According to where the number is in the row of columns and by matching the color on screen to their corresponding color, someone can determine which cash register number they should start walking to.  Signs hanging just past the LCD screen indicate what direction register numbers are located in (”Registers 17 -23  —->”, “Registers 24-35 —–>”)   As someone watches the number drop into his/her slot, the message is re-affirmed by hearing a voice that says the name of the register one should go to.  The lights next to the cash registers have numbers on them, giving visual indication to customers of what register to go to by flashing at the same time as the LCD and voice prompt give visual and aural signals.   

In case a customer is confused there is a Whole Foods employee nearby to 1) point them towards an empy queuing slot 2) point them towards the direction of the register number that was given to them 3) tell them a register number and point them towards it.   At the most, three numbers would be displayed at a time.  However, when one was displayed, another was usually falling away or just falling down.  Numbers always cycled from left to right and went from one column to the next sequential column. It seems that people were entertained and given a sense of focus on a number because the numbers seemed to fall with a sense of gravity, seemingly snapping into their position, then falling away as if being dropped. The system would update only when there was a new register available.  At first I thought that the system would cycle to the next number due to 1) having a sensor by the register that sensed when people were either approaching or leaving the register or 2) that the system would refresh when the cashier hit the total or payment button or when the receipt was disbursed.  I found out by asking one of the cashiers that they hit a separate button when the customer has left the register area.  This is one extra step, but this method accounts for the varying speeds that customers have in picking up their groceries or paying.  This insures against people accruing in messy bunches and the system breaking down.   This system was not necessarily designed for interaction with one person, but rather takes one person’s behavior into account when designing a system that managed the flow of many people.  If you are slower checking out, the system takes that account and a “ready” signal is not sent and will wait until you are done and the next cash register slot is empty and can be filled.  The people I observed using this system seemed to not be able to help watching the display and seemed somewhat hypnotized by the pattern of falling numbers and the drone of the “Register 27… Register 15″ in a droll computer-sounding woman’s voice.

There was some general confusion involved with the “Express - 10 Items or Less” line. It seemed that people seemed slightly uncomfortable separating away from the rest of the people into a different line that seemed to be moving faster or were not aware of the Express line at all (or became aware of it after waiting in one of the other lines). In general, though, it seemed that most people who looked like they were trying this system for the first time seemed a bit bewildered by it but managed to figure it out by the time they made their way to the front of the line.  During the 20 minutes or so that I was there, 5 people were “corrected” or given guidance by the Whole Foods employee.  Further tests would need to be taken to determine patterns (do older people who may be more accustomed to another system need more guidance or resist this system completely?).    

With the exception of the Express Lines problem noted above (which may be remedied with better signage), people seemed to approach the lines energetically and with not too much hesitation.  Were they like people at Disney World finding the lines to their favorite rides now unbelievably short and running into them in there excitement?  I’m not sure, but the selection process of lines did not seem to be a big obstacle.  People seemed to hesitate a little before going to their register, but this may simply be due to the fact that people have to find their flashing register number in not only a single line, but in a grid (as the registers not only stretch left-to-right but front to back).   

Removing the Whole Foods helping employee seems like a bad idea, as there is no way for someone to find there way and there is the risk that they could not only hold up one line now, but several lines of waiting people.  It seems that this way employs more people than the traditional method… the pipeline in this system was made bigger to serve more people faster by having more employees at the register and by the creation of  this new position of “flow” smoothening.

Yes, it takes people a while to get used to new systems of interaction.    Some crafty people might also argue that this new system takes away the art of picking a line from people.  I, for one, won’t miss it too much, as it seems that I, like a lot of other people, seem to be good at picking the one line that slows down whenever I get in it. What I will miss though is the conversations thats sometimes started with the person next to you in the days before everyone was on their cellphones… But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

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Additional Material

Video included below under link “whole foods checkout line.”  I would have shot more but I think Whole Foods thought I was a Trader Joe spy and the manager made me stop using my small point-and-shoot camera.  Hence the not-so-great quality when I put the camera on a shelf a quarter of a mile away.

Here is an article from the New York Times on Whole Foods’ strategy of “queue management.” 

Here is another article that discusses the merits of different types of queuing systems (Which is more polite, which has more grace? One long line with multiple registers, or many lines for many registers?). By Chris Fahey of Behavior Design on his blog graphpaper. 

whole foods checkout line