Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

Really didn’t take us long to get back to our first world problems did it?

As with most tech things the QR menus work well when they’re implemented well and poorly when they’re implanted poorly. Multi-language support (without having to print menus in lots of languages that might not get used) is something I’ve seen in a few places. There is also the opportunity to make them a more accessible option if done right. It allows restaurants to make updates to menu items more frequently and more when something isn’t available.

You have a small device, where you have to scroll. So much nicer when you can actually look at the menu.

I suspect there are things that would improve the experience for everyone. For example, instead of the customer asking "Is X gluten free, is Y gluten free" the online menu could have filters for various allergies etc. Online menus could also offer more pictures, videos of meals, better upsells etc.

Ah yes, the "accessibility" of a $200+ smartphone. $500+ if you actually want it to come with a working ad-free QR reader preinstalled.

Videos of meals? Better upsells? Are you trying to create my personal hell?

82% of the population in the UK own a smartphone. On top of that, if you don’t have one, no restaurant is denying you service.

The largest number of people I could find affected by sight loss in the UK was 4.1 million by 2050, which is obviously far larger than the current number--and sight loss doesn't mean they can't read a paper menu in many cases[1]. The population of the UK is just over 68 million[2].

So two posts ago you were extolling the virtues of accessibility for at most 6% of UK's population, but now it's suddenly no big deal that 18% of the UK's population can't access your menu. And that's ignoring folks like my father: he technically has a smart phone, but he never has it on him and he wouldn't know how to scan a QR code even if he did have his smart phone on him.

And sure, nobody is turning away people without smart phones or blind people. Anyone is welcome to order food as long as they can figure out what your restaurant actually makes.

[1] https://www.rnib.org.uk/nb-online/eye-health-statistics

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingd...

EDIT: You also completely ignored my point about having a working ad-free QR reader installed. I've got an entry-level Samsung phone, which did not come with a built-in QR code reader. The free one I downloaded came with ads.

:) I could see some features becoming quite annoying, especially if you have to click through a bunch of upsells to finally add item to order. I think places could get creative though, for example leave comments for the chef about the meal, make specific requests which the prep team can respond to, have the chef speak about the daily specials in video rather than have a wait staff regurgitate them after having never tried them.

> I could see some features becoming quite annoying, especially if you have to click through a bunch of upsells to finally add item to order.

...which is exactly what would happen, because you can measure how many times the upsell works, but you can't easily measure how many people stop going to your restaurant as a result of this crap, and companies will literally kill people if they can find metrics to show it's profitable.

> I think places could get creative though, for example leave comments for the chef about the meal, make specific requests which the prep team can respond to, have the chef speak about the daily specials in video rather than have a wait staff regurgitate them after having never tried them.

Having worked in food service in the past, the last thing chefs want is comments on the meal from customers. The ignorance and rudeness of the general public when it comes to food is astounding.

The chef speaking about the daily specials might be the only reasonable idea here, but my gut feel is that the only people who would use this would be tech folks interested in the feature, not end users. I don't think this is probably enough of a value add to be worth implementing.

They could, but they never do. I've only gone out dining twice so far, and one time was a QR code place. But their PDF wasn't even text-searchable.