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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

"Consider when you go to a restaurant for a meal. Olson says you are twice as likely to choose from the very top or very bottom of the menu – because those areas first attract your eye. “But if someone asks you why did you choose the salmon, you’ll say you were hungry for salmon,” says Olson.

Those things are not mutually exclusive - they can see the salmon near the top, and decide they are in fact hungry for salmon (as opposed to picking the burger right below or above it instead). It's rapid decision capitulation. People often are open to multiple choices, and get exhausted or annoyed the longer the process of choosing goes on.

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I've got a bit of a lifehack about that.

The average use will look at a menu in a "F" pattern[1]. Try to imagine a big "F" over the menu, then pick something outside of it.

Try to stay clear of images too. If they require an image to sell you the product, there's a reason.

Avoid fancy descriptions and titles. Something called "Fried rice with chicken" will often be just as good and often in bigger quantity than "Le Coq au Vin du Chef". Foreign words and country of origin are a big red flag you are buying dreams and not quality + quantity food.

[1] http://www.vanseodesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/...

TL;DR: Pick the thing that looks good but "meh". Fancy restaurants have chefs that will make everything flavourful. The only reason it has a "meh" description is because the profit margin is lower.

Ok, that works for you. I do the opposite - I look at the pictures and point. Not because I'm ignorant; because the pictures tempt me and that is a better indication of what I'm 'hungry for' than words.

And why on earth would you want to screw with the restaurant profit margin? What possible gain is there in that for you?

Sure, if all the product have a picture, go for it. Most menu however will only have pictures for "featured items". Featured items are not items that have the greatest value for you. They are the items that has the greatest value for the restaurant.

As for profit margins, what I meant is that a recipe with a fancy name is often sold at double the price of everything else while being dead simple to make and uses simple inexpensive products.

Thai food is a great example. I used to pay, let's say, $20 for something that seemed exotic and complex to me. I went with an asian friend at the very same restaurant and he laughed at me for taking this meal at this price.

To him, it was the equivalent of "meat and potatoes". Cheap, inexpensive, fast to make.

He recommended I try the "chicken rice" (no fancy description). Well, turn out the chicken rice uses the same spices as the meal I was paying premium for, had a bigger quantity and even had some other ingredient that to me, were just as fancy and exotic. The "chicken rice" is about $8 cheaper than what I used to take AND I now have enough to bring some home to eat at launch the next day if I want.

(Don't pay attention to the exact prices, I can't remember what it was.)

I think Joe's point is that a person who is manipulated into making a certain choice, is not necessarily worse off for making it. In this case, the photo of the high-margin dish not only increases your likelihood of choosing it from the menu, but also increases your desire and satisfaction for having made that choice.

I have some ridiculously expensive designer furniture at home that rationally makes no sense to choose over something from IKEA. Despite that, they give me a lot of satisfaction and I can feel justified in my decision because of that.

That's not to say that everybody makes decisions that they are happy with, there are lots of ways people are manipulated into decisions that they later regret. However, you really should take into account how people feel about a decision before judging whether or not they have been cheated.

SO if I read that right, you were happy and getting a good meal and it tasted great - exotic and complex were the words you used.

Then, apply that cynical value-proposition argument and suddenly, unhappiness. Why? Because a friend was critical? Because it no longer tastes good? I'm not convinced of the efficacy of that mental model.

You are missing the point.

I was paying $20 for a product that in reality is worth $8 to produce.

Now, I am paying $12 for a product that is equal in quality and has an increased quantity.

The only difference is that with the first product, I was tricked into thinking I was getting a better value. The description was fancier, the name of the recipe was exotic, there was an image on the menu, it was at the top of the page.

The other one was simply "chicken rice", on the back of the menu, squeezed between meals that had names that sounded better. Don't judge a recipe by its name.

In fact, I was paying more for less.

Edit: Yes, I was happy with the first recipe before knowing that I was paying premium for a meal that was in fact, very simple.

The issue isn't my overall happiness. It's the fact that I was tricked into buying a product only by its description and position on the menu. Since it had a picture and I am always in a hurry, I picked it over the more simple "chicken rice" that was in fact just as good (same ingredients, same spices, same chef) while being cheaper.

Was I happy with the original recipe? Yes. Was I wasting money on it? Yes.

Am I as much happy with the new cheaper meal as I was before? Yes. Am I saving money? Yes.

There's that utilitarian viewpoint again. No, I didn't miss the point. I'm taking a chiding tone, suggesting that by counting the cost, you miss the value. If you enjoy the meal, and its in your budget, then all is well.

You could be enjoying more meals by counting the cost - or working less and enjoying more free time. I feel like that's more along the lines of the point.

If you're spending that much time analyzing what food to get when you're out to avoid getting "ripped off", I think maybe you should just learn to cook for yourself because it's a lot cheaper and rewarding in the long run.

Someone who thinks that way probably isn't a good tipper either, so enjoy the free ride on the restaurants' pathetic cashflow.

There's a reason why margins are high on certain menu items in restaurants; running restaurants are a rough business, labor-heavy, and the day-to-day take is volatile and meager, often to do factors entirely out of your control.

Calm down, no need to be throwing plates at each other.

Nobody is stealing anything. We are talking about picking the most cost effective option on the menu while intelligently avoiding traps made by the menu's designers. Picking the item that is "under the fold" instead of the one that has been carefully crafted by the designer for you to pick.

Personally, I use the money I save by taking those items over the featured items by ordering more wine! Everyone is winning here.

>And why on earth would you want to screw with the restaurant profit margin? What possible gain is there in that for you?

I think the idea is that a consumer can get better value for money, and/or a better culinary experience by resisting those items that are heavily pushed. It assumes that restaurants employing these tactics seek to promote dishes with the most mark up on them.

>Avoid fancy descriptions and titles. Something called "Fried rice with chicken" will often be just as good and often in bigger quantity than "Le Coq au Vin du Chef". //

Um, ok. So if I have "chicken braised in red wine with lardons, vegetables, mushrooms, cooked in the Chef's style" that fails with being a "fancy" description and mentioning the country. But le coq au vin du chef is also disallowed because it uses foreign words?

So no coq au vin ever?

Customer: "What's the 'chicken stew'?

Waiter: "chicken braised in red wine with small pieces of bacon, vegetables, and mushrooms, cooked in the Chef's style, sir"

C: "You mean coq au vin?"

W: "Yes, sir."

C: "Oh, ok, I'll have the boeuf bourguinon."

W: "One stew prepared with beef braised in Burgundy flavoured with garlic, onions, herbs, with pearl onions and mushrooms."

Customer2: "I'll take the terrine of Brussels pâté, does it come with Melba toast?"

W: "OK, one lumpy paste of pork ofal made in a rectangular pot. We _can_ do very thinly sliced slowly cooked dry toast if you'd like."

Saying no French is like saying no proper nouns, no Waldorf salad say, but having to describe the ingredients.

Sorry, I couldn't come up with a better exemple on the spot.

The idea isn't to void all recipe that have fancy names. It's to be on the look for those recipes that have very simple names and are located in areas of the menu that aren't optimal. Those hidden gems will often get you all the quality and taste for a lower price and/or bigger quantity.

If there the whole menu is written using imaginative titles and there's a "beef stew" hidden in a corner, you can well be certain that it's a "boeuf bourguinon". There are many reason why it is hidden so. In the end, the main reason is that the meal in question isn't as profitable for the restaurant. It's up to you to decide if it is profitable for you.

Perhaps a better idea is just not to eat in chain restaurants if you don't want to be psychologically manipulated and/or ripped off?

If you believe for one minute that any profitable restaurant isn't psychologically manipulating you are ripping you, you are in for a surprise.

Some few businesses are run on an honest and overt level IME. In general they are not major chains and certainly not ones that are floated. YMMV.

> Olson says you are twice as likely to choose from the very top or very bottom of the menu – because those areas first attract your eye.

Unless you're a vegetarian and there's one option tucked away on page 2.

Which illustrates one way of countering these sorts of manipulation tricks: a very slight offset from the mainstream.

If you find that when you're looking for a product you only end-up with one option that meets your requirements, or perhaps even only one that only partially meets them, then you're pretty much unsusceptible to 'buy this now' pressure.

Yeah but then you're paying $15 for a salad because the restaurantier knows you are stuck with it when your friends dragged you to that restuarant :(

Exactly this

Restaurants probably put the most popular dishes in the top and/or bottom as well.

(Not to mention when the page is divided by sections, so you would have the main dished in the middle, so the point is moot)

Also how you define top/bottom? Divide the page into 2 parts? 3 parts?

They're not mutually exclusive, but it's easy to test how switching things around on the menu will alter the order ratios.

Overall we are exceedingly good at rationalising choices, even when we provably had no influence on them (look up experiments done on patients with severed brain stems).

You are certainly right that people get annoyed with multiple choices, though. I don't remember if it's Cialdini ("Influence") or Jonathan Haidt ("The Happiness Hypothesis") that cites experiments that shows that people are happiest with their choices when they have a small-ish number of alternatives. Above a relatively small number of alternatives, peoples satisfaction with the choice they end up making drops rapidly. Not only is the process of choosing tiresome, but we get far more room for doubt about whether or not we made the right choice.

I've usually decided what I want before I get to the restaurant and then get annoyed when I get there and find it's not on the "lunch" menu or they're out of that. Usually, my choice of restaurant to eat at was made because I was in the mood for something specific, which was influenced by the advertising on the train on the way to work... either way, it had very little to do with the ordering of the menu. Some days, it has nothing to do with the menu at all. If I'm feeling particularly brave, I'll just ask the server to bring me their favourite dish. So I think it's a bit of a reach to say "twice as likely." I'd say it's at best as likely... it totally depends on the chef and their ability to make whatever they've placed on the menu.

Right! There was no control in that experiment, nor can I imagine what one would look like since they don't change any variable.

The way I see it, the top item on the menu is probably fresh and people like it. Or they wouldn't be in business very long.

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