Had similar experiences. This is why they need to bring the proper folks to think through the problem - digital is great until it doesn't work and paper is just less of a pain for everyone. Also, costs a lot less!
As an exercise, we were asked to come up with a solution to help people navigate campus. There were so many suggestions for apps or interactive touch screens. Someone suggested installing terminals where you type where you want to go, and then the floor lights up with directions. Someone else did the same, only it would launch a drone for you to follow.
I suggested hanging printed paper maps on the walls with "you are here" stickers.
I would install direction indicators, like the ones on the roads.
Yours is a good supplement, whichever method is otherwise used. I'm partial to cheap, analog solutions. Though, installing quality signage on a large campus can quickly become more expensive than a simple app.
&thumbsup;
As much as Restaurants moan and complain about raising prices, having to reprint menus isn't 0 cost whenever they want to add a new menu item, or change the prices.
And then you have to pay your servers to clean them from time to time.
As much as people hate this QR stuff, it's generally better, provided it works. Paper is always reliable, but if you can figure out a static CDN website, and create a QR code for it, it's going to be better for a restaurant that wants to change their menus on a semi frequent basis.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer paper menus. But I see why so many restaurants want to do QR code.
My gut says the paper is going to win every time. There are also substantial opportunities to improve the experience for your customers with servers being attentive to their tables.
The table top tablets are convenient. They go a long way to allowing a customer to have agency in improving their experience. Back in my college days, my friends and I frequented a pub where each booth had a button that would light up an indicator above our table letting servers know we needed more beer. It was far and above our favorite place to go hang out on weekends. I'm sure it was more useful than just a beer signal LOL but for our use case it was perfect.
I can see it being better for the restaurant. I don't see how it's better for the customers, even if it works.
On your smartphone? I'm not talking about looking at a menu from home, I'm talking about ordering at the table.
In any case, not being a fan of the Cheesecake Factory, I can't remember the last time that I saw a restaurant menu that spanned more than two pages. I don't think finding what you want on such a short menu is particularly problematic.
However, this may point out a critical difference: what sort of restaurant you prefer. Ones with novel-length menus may indeed present different issues.
Regardless, my experience with online-only menus and/or ordering when I'm sitting at the table has been nothing but horrible. My solution is to not go to restaurants that do this. It's better for my blood pressure that way.
Yes, and so am I. If I'm feeling like chicken, it'd be easy to Ctrl+F (or "Find in page" if you want to be specific about the phone function) to look for chicken.
> I don't think finding what you want on such a short menu is particularly problematic.
It generally isn't that bad, but it was a quick off the dome example that comes up particularly in physical documents vs. electronic documents. Some more specific restaurant examples might be to filter out specific allergens or preferences out of dishes: dairy free, gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, etc. Make a smaller menu for people that can't or won't have particular things, without having to print those menus.
> Regardless, my experience with online-only menus and/or ordering when I'm sitting at the table has been nothing but horrible.
The worst one I had was a restaurant that was a bit outside of town that had poor cell reception. I've never personally had many issues with using my phone except poor signal.
But that's just me, not a criticism of such systems per se.
The ideal, I think, is for restaurants to have both. Printed menus for people like me (the advantage to the restaurant is that they won't lose me as a customer) as well as some sort of online thing for others who prefer that.
There's a reason why pretty much all states use paper ballots instead of electronic-only voting. In both elections and retaurants, paper just works. It has minimal outside dependencies, has few failure modes, and we have processes in place to deal with corner cases.
Sure, electronics are flashier and more efficient, but I think HN can more than appreciate the truth that software and computers are brittle.
Pretty much all states in the USA. In my country (Brazil), all states use electronic-only voting (it's actually a single system, managed by the federal government). Of course, in the rare cases in which it fails (and the replacement device also fails), the paper backup (traditional paper ballots with a canvas box) is still available.
> It has minimal outside dependencies
That's actually the main issue. As the initial comment said, "[...] it should at least provide its own equipment that is hooked to the proper network [...]", and I would add that it should depend only on a local server, so that it works perfectly even if the WAN connection is misbehaving.
(The Brazilian electronic ballot box is completely offline, it has no network connection at all; voting setup and results are stored into a removable memory card, and also printed into paper through a built-in printer as a backup. Its only outside dependency is power, and it has both a built-in battery and connection ports for an external battery.)