Monday, September 27, 2004
Every couple of weeks, we go to the Whole Foods grocery store for a few special items. At the checkout line, they have the standard credit card console. After you swipe your card, the status display reads, "Press green button," referring to the "Enter" key on the key pad. Presumably that is for final approval of the transaction. I'm sure Whole Foods had a more meaningful instruction before, but customers didn't know what to do, so they changed it to something clearer. Unfortunately, they changed it to something entirely useless. It makes sense to have an explicit "Are you sure" step before charging your card, but "Press green button" doesn't mean anything. All you know is that you have to press an arbitrary button before you get your stuff. If they're not going to have it mean anything, they should get rid of it. It's just another thing people can forget or screw up.