#square wallet

What was unusual was finding myself behind the counter with a bewildered employee trying to take my payment through Square. If you don't already know, Square recently killed Square Wallet, its app that allows you to save your credit card and pay either through a barcode in the app or using just your name via a geofence that recognizes when you're in the store. I loved the app dearly, using it nearly everyday, and was sad to see that it never took off. But now I kind of see why. 

Immediately upon telling the employee behind the counter that I wanted to pay with Square I knew it wasn't going to be the seamless, fast experience that Square promised. The wrinkled eyebrow look along with his drawn out "uhh" was the telltale sign. It probably doesn't help that behind the counter were 3-4 different registers all running different payment processing systems from all different startups. I had to tell him which machine in front of him was for Square, and then after fiddling with it for a few minutes and apologizing several times he told me it was his "first time doing this." But the reality is that it wasn't his fault that he couldn't figure out how to use the Square Register -- the blame is 100% on Square itself. 

Long story short, I ended up going behind the counter and it even took me longer than it should have to process the payment. I had to both find the right product from the catalog in the app and then figure out how to find my face and select it. Turns out you have to go in that order; select the product, tap "check out," then and only then will the faces of anyone using Square Wallet will show up. And the app has a large navigation bar stretched across the left-hand side with icons that I mentally don't have a model for -- I didn't know what each of them represented. If that's not enough, after someone walks in the store the cashier has to press a (tiny) refresh button in the list of nearby Wallet users before they'll see that person that just walked in. The whole process is just not intuitive.

This kind of thing would completely steer me away from the app if it weren't for how often I use the barcode feature in Starbucks without any problems. Think about it this way: all the employees at a store have to be trained in how to use the system since employees that normally do other tasks might have to take the register from time to time. Typically they also have a traditional register that they haven't completely replaced so they have to learn how to use that as well. The cognitive overload of an employee juggling completing your order, processing your payment with the correct machine, and doing it all quickly so she can get to other customers is too high.

There's too much training required for employees, all of which span a wildly unpredictable large amount of demographics. How do you design with that in mind I have no idea. And I don't say this after only one anecdote of running into frustration: nearly every place I go other than Starbucks that uses Square in some capacity has resulted in the same level of friction. 

So the problems are 1) Designing an interface that a wide range of demographics will find intuitive. 2) The fact that the industry includes a wide range of payment processors, all with vastly different interfaces. 3) Training employees on how to use new systems. 4) Many shops will add new payment processors like Square but not remove the others, meaning an additional increase in cognitive load for employees that have to figure out which one to use and when. 5) Ensuring on the customer-end that the experience is positive so they continue using it.