Week 8 Tutorial: Watching Yourself Be Watched

Fieldwork noting every moment a self-checkout machine treats the shopper as a suspect

12 April 2027

Before the tutorial

Do a self-checkout shop (or recall a recent one in detail) and log every “unexpected item,” weight-check or camera prompt you encounter.

In the tutorial

We tally the logs across the room and separate genuinely helpful prompts from ones whose only function is loss prevention shifted onto the shopper’s unpaid time.

Afterwards

This week’s machine is a strong candidate for the final teardown, if your category for it isn’t settled yet.

Who benefits when the design is bad?

The spec

What you bring to the tutorial. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.

  • you use a supermarket self-checkout and log every prompt aimed at loss prevention
  • you can distinguish a prompt that helps you from one that only surveils you
  • you estimate how much of your own time the machine's checks used

Teaching team