Group+2



SELF CHECK-OUT MACHINE 
 * PART A - PROPOSAL **


 * __Group Resume__**

Individual Skills: Good creative skills, Good presentation skills, organized and punctual. · Microsoft Office · Adobe Photoshop · Flash Individual Skills: Organized, responsible, good computer skills · Adobe Photoshop · Microsoft Office · Adobe GoLive Individual Skills: Good writing and researching skills, responsible and hardworking. · Adobe Photoshop · Dreamweaver · Illustrator · Responsible for showing up to all meeting on time · Brainstorm and have ideas for meetings · Take in and appreciate eachothers ideas · Divide up work equally · Meet all deadlines
 * Mitali -** 3rd year student doing a double major in CCIT and Sociology
 * Anisha Tailor - ** 3rd year student majoring in CCIT
 * Manvir Mann - ** 3rd year student doing a double major in CCIT and Sociology
 * Collective Rules and Responsibilities:**
 * __PACT Analysis__**

Shopping in today’s day and time has become a daily activity for people around the country. Today more than ever stores are full of customers trying to purchase products they want or feel the need for. Due to this very reason stores are becoming more and more busy lines are increasing, waiting time is increasing and customers more than anyone else are becoming agitated. Seeing this many stores especially grocery stores have implemented a system known as the self check-out machine in effort to decrease cash out lines and allow customers to check out their purchases themselves. However due to the complexity of the machine a lot of customers hesitate to use it and thus its purpose is to an extent lost. Our plan is to transform the machine so that it becomes more user-friendly and customers are not afraid to use to. This in turn will not only help customers by making their shopping experience easier and less time consuming but it will also decrease pressure on cashiers to work faster, and all this sequentially will benefit the store as a whole as they will gain more pleased customers and thus more profit.
 * People**

The purpose of the activity is to allow the customer to cash through their own things. The activity can be quite infrequent, but our goal is to redesign the machine so people use it often. We want it to become quick and easy to learn and a natural second (or first) choice when cashing out at a store. Another reason we feel that it should be quick and easy to learn is that there is the time pressure from people waiting in line to use it, especially during peak hours. The machine should also be able to handle these peak hours. The machine should have a quick response time to avoid having the customer wait. While there is always a cashier around waiting to assist people, we want to have a machine that can be fully operated by the customer alone, and with the least amount of errors. Errors do happen, but they should be very fixable and not cause the cashier to start all over again. The only activity that should be vague at all is finding produce codes through the machine. This information should be made easy to find. Other than that, all tasks should not take more than 1-2 steps.
 * Activities**

The machine is located at the front of the store, with about 5-6 grouped together. They would be next the cashiers. There may be security cameras around or at least a cashier or two walking around to make sure everything is in check. The environment would be pretty noisy from all the people in the store. Social - The environment should be a combination of an independent, yet supportive environment. There should be some sort of instruction in the machine, as well as features that provide privacy, especially when it comes to paying. There are also 1-2 cashiers available if help is needed Organizational – There is a power structure, but it is not at the forefront. The cashier is at the top, while to customer is on the bottom. But the purpose of a self check-out machine is to have the customer do it themselves and feel as though they are the ones in charge.
 * Context**

The Self Check-out Machine currently has a product scanner, a weighing scale, paying options, as well as written and audio instructions for the customers to follow to complete the purchasing process. Nevertheless these aspects of the machine do not exactly make the machine easy and effective to use by the customers. A few changes which could benefit the machine and not only make it simpler to use but also more diverse in its users are for one changing the form of instructions given to customers. They should not only be written and in audio form but the machine should also provide the customers with pictorial instructions illustrating where certain things are on the machine. For example (where to put money/credit card, where certain buttons are, etc). Also if the machine is going to provide audio instructions they should be clearer so customers are able to understand, well at the same time the customers should be given the option of a text size for the written variables on the screen for people with vision problems as well as to simply make things more visible. Moreover we found that a lot of customers were complaining at the fact that there was no limit to how many items you can cash through the machine, and due to this many problems were caused as customers would take more time cashing out and the machine sometimes had technical problems. Thus we find if it were more like an express lane with a limit of 15 or less items the process would run more smoothly. Lastly some other problems include the weighing scale, and the amount of time the customers are given between scanning or punching in the item and placing it on the scale, also the scale itself is to precise and we feel it should run within a range. As what would customers be required to do if the item is too big for the scale or to small and the scale cant sense it? Another change which could benefit the machine is maybe offering it in different languages since we live in an ever increasing multicultural country, and last but not installing a feature to the machine so that it can detect fake money.
 * Technologies**


 * __Explortions__**

Our inspiration for this was derived from a couple of us working at stores that had these machines, and noticing that most people chose to have cashiers cash their purchase, instead of one of these machines. People sometimes tended to look a bit hesistant and we want to change that. We feel that if we engage more customers, they may choose to come back to that particualar store in the future.

[|http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:P7nDqS5QZwMJ:www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~x39liu/exercise1.pdf+problems+with+the+self+checkout+machine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=ca]
 * Some Relevant Sites:**

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