
McDonald’s, Meet McPathogens - yters
https://mindmatters.ai/2018/12/mcdonalds-meet-mcpathogen/
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vortico
There's a probability for picking up infections for every object you touch,
which is proportional to the number of hands that touched it prior to your
operation. If this is a significant problem compared to human cashiers,
there's an easy fix that is the same with bathrooms and tables: require that
janitors on duty sanitize them every X hours.

Also, I've used automatic ordering touch screens before and didn't have any
difficulty. I feel that the employee's response "She sighed, looked me in the
eye, and confessed “Everybody does.”" is exaggerated. What she meant was
probably "It's super easy but some customers still can't get it, so I will
sympathize with you because saying 'no, it's easy' would be rude."

~~~
AstralStorm
The second solution is to use an antibacterial surface. Nanoparticle silver or
copper are a good choice.

Of course such a screen would have to be specially made.

~~~
vortico
How much are these? (USD ea for 100,000 volume, say)

~~~
AstralStorm
No idea, I'd need a Chinese contract, but cheap enough that Apple considered
getting these in iPads. Instead of ITO (indium tin oxide) coating you use AgNW
(silver nanowire) coating. Unlike ITO this can be painted onto more substrates
instead of vapor depletion. Useful for more flexible touchscreens.

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tantalor
This is useless blog spam & buries the lead.

Just read the original article: [https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/28/poo-found-on-
every-mcdonalds-...](https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/28/poo-found-on-every-
mcdonalds-touchscreen-tested-8178486/)

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fhbdukfrh
This is not about making your experience "more enjoyable" it is a direct
response to wage increases that directly target these workers and the company
responding. Same with the grocery store. Or mobile ordering from Starbucks, or
using an ATM. The experience ranges from much better (ATMs) to much, much
worse (grocery stores) , but the only way they will "fail" is if everyone
forgoes their big mac to go somewhere else and pay more for human cashiers.
That is not going to happen.

~~~
aeternus
The failure of the Grocery store self-checkouts is that they are not automated
enough.

The customer still has to manually scan every item. Items have to be placed
one-by-one in the bagging area. Any small divergence from this, or something
out of the ordinary like an Alcohol purchase triggers an exception and
requires human intervention. This is enough automation/tech to be annoying but
not enough to solve the real problem.

Contrast that with the Amazon Go store which is automated enough that very few
would prefer the cashier route even if available.

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deft
McDonald's outsourced the work traditionally done by their staff to the
customer. Their staff is forced to wash their hands at common intervals, the
general public isn't. Interesting article :)

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zck
> It’s so much easier to order my Egg McMuffin and black coffee from a human
> behind the counter than to poke my index finger through a decision tree on
> the self-order kiosk.

I disagree. When I've been to McDonald's (a few times a year), I find the
kiosks easier.

1\. There's rarely a line, even when there's a line to order at the counter.

2\. Things are more discoverable. If you already know exactly what you want,
it is probably faster to order with a human. But if you're not sure, the
overhead menu boards are not so easy to work with; they are now screens that
move and don't show all the menu at one time. It also isn't always obvious
what prices are.

3\. Things are easier to customize. The kiosk says exactly what you can add or
remove. For example, recently I found out through a Shake Shack kiosk that you
can add lettuce to a spicy chicken sandwich, or make it extra spicy and remove
pickles. A human cashier might suggest one of those things, but not all of
them.

4\. There's no pressure to move along. You're not bothering anyone by looking
through the options in the kiosk. However, if you stop for ten seconds while
ordering at the counter to try to figure out if you're in a quarter pounder or
a crispy chicken sandwich mood, it feels like you're bothering the cashier.

~~~
StrictDabbler
Absolutely. I have two further points:

5\. Once you've learned the idiosyncrasies of the kiosk it is the same on
every visit.

Human cashiers vary in their understanding of the menu, the McDonald's system,
and the local language. The human cashiers are _also_ just poking their index
fingers through a decision tree, though it's broader and less deep than self-
serve kiosks often offer us.

If I'm ordering hamburgers for a road-trip I know my wife wants tartar sauce
on hers, I want no ketchup on mine but I want extra mustard, and my cousin
wants neither.

Trying to convey such a simple order (6 _Hamburgers)=(2_ TarterAdded+2
_(KetchupRemoved+ExtraMustard)+2_ (no sauce)) is an infuriating exercise in
implicit closures.

"So you want extra mustard on the ones without ketchup?"

"On two of the ones without ketchup, yes. Two of the burgers are without any
sauce at all."

Try ordering the sandwiches one-by-one and you'll discover that any two
identical sandwiches in a row are treated as a mistaken repetition. Etc, etc.

6\. The mobile apps allow parallelism. You don't have to wait to get to the
counter or even the restaurant to make your order.

While I'm driving my wife can order our food. It's not exactly ready when we
arrive but it's a lot sooner than if we'd waited in line.

At Disneyland, we often walked right by dozens of families to pick up our
mobile orders because nobody had bothered to understand the app. We saved
_hours_ of waiting and given the price we were paying Disney to be in the park
that was a huge savings.

The fundamental practical advantages of mobile ordering are so great that the
back-end side will never be abandoned. So why not have a giant tablet in the
restaurant running the front-end?

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Tihiy
Bullshit. Nobody ever wants to talk with another human being and line up to
touch kiosks. You contact far more pathogens by touching public handrails and
doorknobs.

~~~
fhbdukfrh
If this is a real problem (of which I'm doubtful) McDonalds, being one of the
most responsive large companies in the world, will fix it first by adding to
human janitorial duties and soon after have the kiosk self clean, or remove it
and push everyone to the my McD app on their own, filthy phone

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partycoder
Have people use an app instead, problem solved.

The same people touched the entrance door handle anyways. And if you use cash
you are exposed to the same germs.

~~~
AstralStorm
Actually worse. Cash is porous giving a nice surface for bacteria to hold and
is rarely if ever washed.

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morkfromork
They have an app. You do not need to touch their kiosks or deal with the kid
behind the counter.

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adamiscool8
I would anticipate the kiosks move to voice control before they would ever go
back to cashiers.

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unique-template
I stopped reading at "The Blaze reports..."

