HOW would you like to "shop" while sipping a cup of coffee, then drive round to a pick up point to collect your order - or even go home to await delivery?

In the supermarket of the future, the "hub" is a caf, taking up 60pc of the floorspace, where shoppers order goods via computer terminals, although there are still small "galleries" of display cabinets for shoppers who can't function without seeing or touching.

This vision is design consultancy Kinneir Dufort and IT specialist Appliance Studio's entry for a competition organised by the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, which works with students, new graduates and professionals to explore the practical design implications of key social developments.

It is the result of "brainstorming the whole shopping experience" from the point of view of a young mother with her child, a visually impaired old (their word) man and a wheelchair user.

Not having to battle with crowded aisles could have its appeal to them, but I can't quite tie it in with Kinneir Dufort product designer Chris Padain's explanation that: "People see shopping as a social experience. We tried to emphasise the fun part of it in the sense of it being a tactile and sensory experience. We did not want it purely technology-driven."

Maybe I'm having a thick day, but there's not a lot tactile or sensory about it; it seems totally technology-driven and it isn't my idea of "fun". Where is the social experience in sitting at a computer, even if you've got a large latte at your side? A chat before or after ordering implies going with a friend or knowing fellow shoppers.

This is England. We need shared experiences to trigger conversation. I've had many a chat over problems with shelf displays and last week, I had a checkout queue natter with an elderly widow, begun as we waltzed our stubborn trolleys into position. She lived alone; maybe she talked to no-one else that day.

Having shopped with a young child, I hope the caf would have a crche, or play area, so mum could think in peace as she keyed in her order.

I wonder, too, how visually impaired the old man was. My supermarket trips are made in the company of a visually impaired friend. She'd be in the "gallery", picking up and putting things close to her face to see them but knows she'd never cope with an ordering terminal.

Wheelchairs are beyond my experience, except for occasionally reaching stuff down for a passing user. Does this look promising to those of you who do use them?

And the more technology, the more there is to go wrong. Key in two cans of beans and it'll be an act of faith that it's what you'll get and not six cans, or three of dog food.

Getting the systems we've already got into better order would be a sight more useful.

Take bar codes, for instance. They were invented so the grocery trade could speed us through the checkouts and keep better track of their stock. Codes were so successful they colonised the retail sector.

Yet stock control is still shaky. My tights were on display in my size or my colour, but not both together. This was a national chain and a routine line; barcoding ought to tell them stock was low.

That's nothing, said a friend who'd tried to buy a mower. Only the display model was left but a helpful assistant, with a gadget, read the barcode and said: "There are nine coming in, it says, but it doesn't say when and I know that none of them may arrive." I rest my case.