I have always done the work of expressing my desired food item. Without a kiosk that desire gets repeated by another person to a computer. With a kiosk that repetition does not happen, the order is directly expressed to the machine. It appears to me there is 50% less labor with a kiosk.

The McDonald’s kiosks require more work than telling a cashier your order, IME. They’re crap.

They can be improved, a really nice to use kiosk is definitely achievable.

I prefer the kiosks, much in the same way I prefer self checkout at grocery stores.

The kiosks could be improved, but won't, because the annoyances are on purpose - they're trying to upsell.

The question is if it requires more effort than using the cash register.

I agree the kiosks are a bit harder for a customer to use, I accidentally ordered something like 80 chicken nuggets the first time I used one, simply because I tried to add extra sauce.

I still prefer them because it's easy to have a bunch of kiosks which means there are shorter lines.

That’s why I like their app. I usually re-order what I got before, while on the way there.

This would be great if every store didn't have a different uniquely bad ui