It's ridiculous to me how persistently poor receipt usability is. At a minimum, this is how I would like to see my ideal receipt:

* Sales tax integrated into the dish price rather than a sum at the end (or if this is not possible, at least an indicator of what the local sales tax rate is on the receipt)

* Items split up into categories: drinks, apps, mains etc.

* A percentage tip guide on both the receipt & the credit card statement (ie: 15% = $3.45, 18% = ...)

* A form area on the back for writing out how to split across multiple credit cards

* menu prices engineered towards nice round numbers post-tip (if I get a $51 bill, I'm inclined to tip $9 to make it an even $60. If I get a $52 bill, I'm inclined to tip $8 to make it an even $60).

At most, I've seen 2 of these features on any one receipt, most receipts have 0.

I think the most trying use case receipt usability needs to accommodate for is the birthday scenario:

A group of 7 people are celebrating someone's birthday. They order drinks, apps for the table to share, everyone has a main course and 3 people have desserts. The cost of the birthday boy's meal is being split among the rest of them. there are 2 couples who are paying jointly & 3 singletons.

Such a scenario is never going to be trivial but it could be a hell of a lot less painful than it is currently.

That's being spoon-fed? This would be useful when I'm out for dinner with my gaggle of Math, Physics and Engineering PhDs. Splitting the tab is rarely the most interesting conversation to be had...

I've heard that single bills are the norm in the US (I don't actually know if this is true, however), but up here in Canada this is a solved problem.

When you order, you simply tell your server who is paying for what (e.g. "separate bills", "I'm paying for her, those two are separate"). If you don't say anything, they tend to ask before giving you your bill. It's pretty simple.

That's correct, but not the whole story.

At chain restaurants in the US, we get a single bill in two inches of space and 10 inches of space with laborious instructions on how to complete their customer satisfaction survey.

I don't like the baby bird analogy, or the use of the term "spoon-fed" here. It makes it sound as if people should be ashamed for wanting things to be simpler.

That's just your own negative connotation. The man is using short, concise and clear terms to describe a trend and it's anecdotal evidence.

Coroners shouldn't stop calling a stiff "a body" just because it sounds mortifying to you. It's what it is.

No, the word spoon-fed has negative connotations of helplessness and apathy, just as dumbed-down or pointy-clicky have. If that kind of words come to mind, or if you think users are lazy when they don't read what you write, or refuse to fill out a seven-field registration form, then you are going to design bad user experiences and your competitors will beat you.

This particular writer is probably just using it as link-bait though.

How is being an application user negative? How is being helpless negative?

Whatever you write, it solves a problem for someone somewhere. And the less work they have to do to leverage your solution, the better your solution will work for them.

Here are your many words, confusing, lengthy non-empathic. Or you could just say "spoon-feed the solution to your user".

It's about caring, not about attacking or disrespect. The negative connotations are yours alone, you're still reading too much into this.

Yeah, when I saw "spoon-fed" I thought this was going to be about how people learn, not how they split up restaurant bills.

I agree, making things clear or intuitive is a virtue, not a vice, and the language should reflect that.

POS (restaurant cash register/ordering software) is a field particularly ripe for innovation. I suspect there isn't much conversation going on between programmers and the service industry.