Veena's Counter Queue

When customers reach the dairy counter I give them a number, so I know exactly who is waiting and who to serve next.

Who this is for

Veena Kulkarni runs a dairy and paneer counter on a lane off Subhash Road in Dharwad. Two helpers, one weighing scale, and a fridge that holds the morning paneer. Between quarter past seven and nine she serves about seventy people, most of them regulars who want half a kilo of curd or two hundred grams of paneer. The moment this matters is when four people arrive together and one of them is in a hurry to catch a bus.

How the job is done today

Veena keeps the order in her head. Her helper Sagar shouts over the crates, asking who came first. Regulars are given way out of habit, which the man standing behind them notices. On a busy Sunday a customer paid, stepped aside to take a call, and lost his place entirely. Twice a week someone says I was here before him, and Veena settles it by guessing. There is a notebook near the till but it is only for udhaar accounts, never for the queue, because nobody has a free hand to write in it while pouring curd.

The screens, in order

1. Give a number — Veena taps once as each customer walks up, and the person is told their number out loud.
2. Now serving — The old phone propped against the curd tray faces the customers and shows only the number being served, large enough to read from the back of the line.
3. Who is waiting — Sagar sees the numbers still waiting so he can mark one as served or mark one as gone when the person has walked off.
4. Morning count — After the rush Veena sees how the morning went in three figures, without having to remember anything.

What it keeps track of

• Turns — the number, the time it was given, and whether it is waiting, served or gone
• Counter mornings — the date, the first number of the day, the last number of the day
• Phones at the counter — which phone can give numbers, and which one only shows the number being served

The one decision that matters

One phone or two. One phone is cheaper to start: Veena taps to give a number, then turns the screen around so the customer can see it. That is exactly the flipping and turning that causes the confusion in the first place, and in sunlight nobody at the back can read a phone held at an angle. Two phones is the right way. Veena's own phone gives out numbers and stays in her hand. The five-year-old phone she stopped using is propped against the tray, plugged in, showing one giant black figure on a white screen and nothing else. No colours, no small print, no moving parts. A screen that only shows one number can be read from six feet away in direct sun.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out messages telling people their turn is near. No SMS, no WhatsApp, no asking for phone numbers. At a dairy counter the wait is eight minutes and the customer is standing right there looking at the number. Collecting numbers would slow down the one action that must stay a single tap. Also leave out booking a turn from home. That turns a queue into a diary, and Veena did not ask for a diary.

How you would know it worked

A full week goes by and nobody at the counter says I was here before him. Sagar stops shouting across the crates to ask who is next, and the man catching the eight o'clock bus knows whether he has time to wait.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a dairy and paneer counter in Dharwad and the mornings get crowded. Make me a website where I tap one button to give the next customer a number, and that same number shows on a second phone that I keep propped up facing the customers, in very big black figures on a white screen so it can be read in direct sunlight on an old phone. I want a list of the numbers still waiting so my helper can tap to mark one served, or mark one as gone if the person left without collecting. The number should go up on its own and start again from one the next morning. At the end of the morning show me how many numbers I gave out, how many I served, and how many never came. Customers should not have to log in or type anything, and only my own phone should be able to give out numbers.