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sxg

What's wrong with QR codes for restaurant menus? Here are the pros I can come up with off the top of my head:

- Restaurants can experiment with more food options and more frequent updates to their menu

- Real time info on what's in stock

- Cuts out the cost of having to constantly reprint the menu

- Easier for customers to find the menu online when searching for restaurants (huge issue pre-COVID)

What are the actual downsides? Sure, there may be a tiny fraction of people without a smartphone, but they're likely accompanied by someone who does have one. Despite that, restaurants would likely keep a few physical menus on-hand.

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In addition to all the other downsides listed, here's another more basic one: I don't want to order food from a smartphone!

If I wanted to push a button and get food, I'd eat out of a vending machine or order with DoorDash. One of the reasons I go into a restaurant or some other meatspace "event" is to escape technology for a tiny bit of time and enjoy life. I want to sit down in a comfortable place, enjoy a conversation with my family, or bask in the ambience of the restaurant. I want to have a pleasant, human interaction with a human server. With these digital-only menus, now I'm yet again pulling out my smartphone and scrolling-scrolling-scrolling. Sorry, due to work I've got screens blasting at me for hours every day. I'm not going to go out in the evening to look at another screen.

The problem is that most of the time a "QR Code Menu" means a QR code pointing to a PDF hosted on Google Drive or alike, a digitized version of a paper menu which was never meant to be read on tiny phone screens and is a pain to read with no reflow. You have to squint at your screen to figure out what you want, and then the rest of the process is the same, someone comes down and takes your order.

What you presumably mean by "QR Code Menu" is a QR code pointing to a website where the content is optimized for screens and perhaps interactive, allowing you to order from your table without involving wait staff and thus streamlining the entire ordering process for you and the restaurant.

So what people actually have a problem with is shitty implementations, not the idea of "QR Code Menus"? Why don't they just say so?

Because they're talking about their experiences with QR Code Menus, the majority of which are the way I described them.

If 95% of all practical implementations of a concept are bad implementations then I don't have a good idea implemented badly. What I have instead is an idea that fails to work when faced with the real world. I'd say it's warranted to call that "a bad idea".

Don't be intentionally obtuse. Reframing the parent comment as "the _only_ concern (all) people have is poor QR code menu implementations" is disingenuous and myopic.

A major con for me is that I don’t want to get my phone out. If I use my phone to read the menu I’m also seeing notifications, they may distract me even if only by making me think about them. I’d rather just not check my phone for the duration of the meal.

Also I have friends and relatives who have never owned a smartphone, some who would be essentially unable to do so.

That said, another benefit is more scope for accessibility. I would bet that most restaurant sites are terrible for accessibility, but implementing screen reader or large font support would apply everywhere, whereas I’d also bet that most restaurant never have braille or large print menus.

> If I use my phone to read the menu I’m also seeing notifications

You can turn on do not disturb until you leave the current location on iOS. I do that a lot. You have all of the tools you need. It's like someone complaining that the sun is too bright when they have their cap turned backwards and their shades on top of their head.

> It's like someone complaining that the sun is to bright when they have their cap turned backwards and their shades on top of their head.

It's more like you're saying that it shouldn't be a problem to require someone to stare directly into the sun because they should have brought eclipse glasses and be fine with using them

If that were the case, 95% of the US population would be going blind.

It amazes me how many people are railing against technology while posting on HN...

It amazes me that you cannot seem to realise that many people have problems with the inappropriate uses of technologies.

And they are free to make choices and accept the inconveniences that come with those choices.

I’m sure people complained about those horseless carriages years after cars became mainstream

why do you think that so many people here are proposing that the choices you suggest are toxic? because they are stupid?

Well, if you stay in the HN bubble you would think that in normal life, people are complaining that they can't run Linux on AirPods....

But in the real world, smart phone penetration is 95%, including 94$ of the homeless (I posted a citation earlier)

> why do you think that so many people here are proposing that the choices you suggest are toxic?

People also think that alcohol sales shouldn't happen on Sunday, and all other crazy stuff. I'm simply suggesting that if your choices are out of the society's norms, it's not society's responsibility to make affordances for you.

somethings that you don't seem to understand:

- this is not entirely about the homeless

- this is not entirely about the elderly

it is about companies using technology badly - something you either support or can't recognise.

If we made a law forbidding companies from using software badly, every single SaaS business would disappear.

> it is about companies using technology badly - something you either support or can't recognise.

Would you believe that my wife and I refuse to use American Airlines partially because the app and the website is so bad? I stay away from a lot of services, software and hardware because of a bad user experiences.

People are complaining about cars now. Walkable cities and bike lanes are the fashionable wave in urbanism.

We have the tools, but QR code menus override the most basic tool – keeping my phone in my pocket. When I have to take my phone out and haven't pre-planned by switching to DND, I'm likely to see notifications.

It's like complaining that the sun is too bright after deciding to stay indoors and consequently not bringing a hat, but then being forced to go outside.

Once again it seems like you want me to inconvenience myself because you don't want to make the effort.

> It's like complaining that the sun is too bright after deciding to stay indoors and consequently not bringing a hat, but then being forced to go outside.

You really didn't know that in 2023 you might have to use a QR code to see a menu? That's like going to Seattle and being surprised that it started raining.

I'm not from Seattle or the US so don't know that stereotype. In the same way, I don't expect restaurants to use QR codes for menus because it's fairly rare in my experience, so no I would not plan for it.

I prefer it when venues like restaurants design for all and don't expect knowledge of local customs.

> Once again it seems like you want me to inconvenience myself because you don't want to make the effort.

This is not the conclusion most would draw from this. If anything it seems fairly well understood that QR menus are mostly beneficial for restaurants not diners.

If I open Scarface's Pork, Beef and Spirits should I be forced to design my restaurant for people who have a religious conviction against eating beef and pork?

>If I use my phone to read the menu I’m also seeing notifications, they may distract me even if only by making me think about them.

This is my concern as well. When someone is at a table with people, put the damn phone away and actually be present for those around you.

QR code menus make "phones out" the default state of a table. So of course people will get distracted and split their attention between notifications and those around them.

- Paper menus are much easier to browse.

- Lots of restaurants have no WiFi and may also have poor cell reception for certain networks. This either makes the menu slow to access or impossible to access.

- I shouldn’t have to pass my phone around the table to people who can’t access the online menu. That slows everything down and most people don’t want others on their phones anyway.

- When they throw in payment with their online menu there are inevitably issues. I’ve had this fail numerous times (money taken, order didn’t go through).

- Lots of restaurants have PDF menus designed for a computer screen. They’re awful to browse on a phone.

I find menus on phones harder to read. And it just feels annoying to have everyone’s face in their phones at a meal.

I have no issue with it being default, but since covid ended, the places that still use qr menus seem not to have paper menus on hand.

It’s not the end of the world but it makes your restaurant feel cheap.

Still 100 times better than places that make you order on your phone.

Remind me in 20 years when the majority of HN loses their near vision and their 3 month old prescription isn't working.

The future is going to be hysterical as the US ages out.

I'm already there. I cannot read my phone without glasses. And I often misplace my glasses, or leave the house without them.

We need to bring the monocle back. Very portable.

The usual downside is the menu was designed to be printed and not viewed on a screen that is 1/4 or less the size.

So I see part of the drink menu horizontally and vertically. Another example: Non-alcoholic is on the "back" of the menu but wine is on the "front".

And now the restaurant needs to hire a UX designer.

Printing costs so little that you can do completely unique menus for each patron for less than a full time software engineer.

> What are the actual downsides?

Surveillance. For those of us who still care, that is.

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