Comments on: Usability at McDonald’s

By: Myles G

Myles G — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:47:55 +0000

I work at a McDonald’s as a cashier ( say what you want about that. ) Here’s what we do: We don’t have a COD, or customer order display, at our drive-thru. So, we mess up a little more with the order, unfortunately. But, with the sweet tea issue, that’s a usability issue with the register. With us, we’ll charge you for a large sweet tea ($1), and then “grill” the item. That is, bring up the special order interface, and add the words “NO SUGAR” to it, making it unsweet for all intents and purposes. Just some manager making the POS a little more harder than it really needs to be, I guess.

By: Liz

Liz — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:50:02 +0000

I have noticed that sometimes the people at my McDonalds who have to make the sweet tea forget to stir the sugar in and so it all settles and sticks to the bottom of the large plastic tub we make it in. So when it’s poured into the mettle bucket-dispenser it comes out at unsweetened. They’ve done this several times in the time I’ve worked there. That’s worker error. Also, many times they just don’t pay attention to which bucket they’re pouring it into. On top of that they sometimes put two different teas next to one another without marking them and end up handing out the wrong ones.

Most of it is worker error. I had no problem handing out the right teas when I worked there. I believe I only had two complaints in the year we had both the teas while I was still an employee.

By: Karee

Karee — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:50:16 +0000

So its not just me. I have ordered UNSWEET tea almost everyday for the past two weeks (playing Monopoly) and have gotten SWEET tea five times. I check my receipt… it says UNSWEET. I sometimes take the time to take a sip before driving off. Today, looking ratty and disgusting, I had to park, get out of my car and have them correct the order. Come on!!!!

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:33:30 +0000

I also have the problem of getting a sweet tea alot of the time when I ordered unsweet tea. Here in Iowa they give you a foam cup for sweet tea and plastic cup for unsweet. I spot it evertime but before they used plastic for both.Got me a few times.I did not spit it out but had troubles swallowing it, lol. I hate sweet tea.

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:01:22 +0000

I actually work for a McDonalds in Michigan. The iced tea and the sweet tea come out in different cups. Even if you look at the screen and think the wrong thing, you should be able to tell what it is by what cup comes out of the conveyor. The sweet tea comes out in a Styrofoam cup and the unsweetened comes out in a normal plastic one.

The problems that I have come across at our location is that people occasionally put the sweet tea or the unsweetened tea in the wrong place or put the sweet tea in the unsweetened container. We now have SEVERAL labels on ours to ensure that that doesn’t happen.

Also, I really don’t know how else that could put it on the screen to make it any more blunt that one tea is sweetened and one is not. At least for me, I have yet to give out the wrong tea to someone on my own mistake. If this is such a problem at that location, one of the managers needs to step in and start telling people to pay more attention to what they are doing (which is what their job is anyways).

I suppose the only better way of putting the two teas is to have one say sweet and the other just say tea.

By: Trending Upward | Everyday Usability - Help! I’m Lost!

Trending Upward | Everyday Usability - Help! I’m Lost! — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:55:52 +0000

[...] I mentioned in my Usability at McDonald’s post a couple weeks ago, usability goes way beyond websites. We encounter it everyday – in grocery [...]

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:50:14 +0000

Before I started bussing it to work, I, too, hit the McDonalds drive-thru every morning for a large unsweetened iced tea (and on the weekend mornings as well, now that I think about it). And at least two days out of the week the experience would leave me in what I have come to refer to as a “McRage” — for two reasons:

1. The exact reason you mention — receiving a sweet tea instead of unsweetened. Even though I clearly ordered unsweetened and even though the screen showed that I had ordered unsweetened tea. I learned quickly to ask the person at the pick-up window, “It’s unsweetened, right?” And to then immediately taste it to be doubly sure.

2. Every so often I like to switch it up and have a little fresh lemon and a TINY bit of Equal in my iced tea. At some point someone at McDonalds had the bright idea to tell their servers to put the sweetener into the drink for you — whether you asked them to or not. I soon learned to order this way:

“May I please have a large UNSWEETENED iced tea with lemon and one packet of Equal ON THE SIDE?”

For reasons I cannot comprehend, I would still get a full packet of Equal in the tea. So I changed up my order to …

“”May I please have a large UNSWEETENED iced tea with lemon and one packet of Equal ON THE SIDE? PLEASE DO NOT PUT THE EQUAL IN THE CUP!”

Amazingly, every so often I would still get the full packet of Equal, so I figured I’d fix their little red McWagons and order this way …

“May I please have a large UNSWEETENED iced tea with lemon?”

And then when I’d get to the second window I’d ask for a packet of Equal.

Now it’s a much less stressful event because I ride the bus to work and stop at Panera, where they give me the cup and I handle the rest. It’s worth paying the extra 90 cents. Plus, Panera’s iced tea is always fresh and tastes so good!

By: Cole

Cole — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:50:14 +0000

I’ve wondered for way too long they don’t just let me take over and touch my order in from a kiosk. I know what I want and the person inside is trying so hard to translate that into something … it is bound to be mistake ridden. I would bet that most people are like you — they get about the same thing every time they go to MCD. I would bet that it wouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 trips to the kiosk before you got your order wired. I’m sure it would prove to be faster and potentially more accurate — the “highly trained” staff still have to fill the order.