Self-service sorrow

Dining kiosks force students into strict payment options and prevent meal adjustment

PATRICK HANOVER contributing columnist

The kiosks at JMU dining locations, such as Market 64 and Dukes Dining, are intended to make transactions more convenient. A lot of these systems became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic — and these technologies remain in place, perhaps due to their novelty

Kiosks allow you to order your food without interacting with anyone. You follow instructions on a touch screen to customize your order. There’s a process you go through to complete your order, but you can usually go back and change things before officially checking out. This all may seem convenient — it would appear as if all that stood between you and your order were just a few taps on a screen, and you’re all set. This is mostly true, as fast-food chains, for example, might be able to advertise shorter lines if they install multiple kiosks.

An “it-goes-withoutsaying” dart to the person who sat in my unassigned assigned seat in the fourth week of class.

From someone who is arriving to class earlier next time.

A “time-to-relax” pat to Assessment Day.

From someone who desperately needed time to catch up.

Unfortunately, wait time can potentially be extended for some people and shorter for others, based on luck. This luck is more or less a speculation, but it’s possible for a few inputs to be overlooked if there aren’t enough people managing a system. Output can be inconsistent as a result. see KIOSKS , page 20 from KIOSKS , page 18

In addition, areas that have kiosks instead of a cashier make it difficult to use two or three punches. The kiosks send you into two separate paths by prompting the question “Is this a Duke Deal?” Selecting yes will show you all options that only require one punch, whereas selecting no will take you to the main menu.

When you get to the end, you must select the payment method. Some students have shown dissatisfaction with the transaction process.

The main difference between the Freshens at the University Recreation Center (UREC), and the one at D-Hall is that customized meals, which allow for the use of multiple punches at UREC, are only done through regular standard payment methods at D-Hall.

Bottom line is, the interfaces on these kiosks are limited in terms of standard control over your ability to customize every part of your order. This is not felt as much at Dukes Dining, but at a workstation such as Freshens, which works the same way as a Chipotle, the ability to ask for special requests such as “double chicken” are not possible with the kiosks.

It would be ideal if this new way of ordering food is amended here at JMU to accommodate these requests.

CONTACT Patrick Hanover at hanovepv@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more editorials regarding the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the opinion desk on Instagram and Twitter @Breeze_Opinion.