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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

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!

ixwt 2y ago
I'm not quite sure how having to reprint paper menus is cheaper than a static CDN website. Especially if you have multiple locations. 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.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > As much as people hate this QR stuff, it's generally better, provided it works I can see it being better for the restaurant. I don't see how it's better for the customers, even if it works.
  - ixwt 2y ago
    I can Ctrl+F on a web menu. I have to manually scan to find stuff in a paper menu for one.
    - DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
      I can do Ctrl-Q, Ctrl-C and Alt-F4 depending on the location, and yes I give a Ctrl-F as for QR
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      > I can Ctrl+F on a web menu. 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.
      - ixwt 2y ago
        > On your smartphone? I'm not talking about looking at a menu from home, I'm talking about ordering at the table. 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.
        JohnFen 2y ago
        I should also mention my personal bias here: if I'm at a restaurant (or any other socializing event), the very last thing I want to be doing is interacting with a screen of any sort. I want to be present and enjoy the people I'm with, not using a computer. 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.
- lores 2y ago
  Printing menus only costs about 2 minutes of a dev's time, anyone in the restaurant can do it, there's no need to involve a third party who may not be responsive, and the fact it never fails to work is huge. We tech people often ignore the sheer amount of grief we go through because we're used to fixing things and confident we can. A restaurant owner will experience far higher cognitive load and frustration - and if the site goes down in business time, it's total hell. Not easily worth it.
  - ixwt 2y ago
    Restaurants don't often print their menus in house. They get the printed at a print shop. Which takes time, and labor. And unless you're doing them at volume, isn't a negligible costs. Don't get me wrong, I prefer paper menus. But I see why so many restaurants want to do QR code.
    - wbshaw 2y ago
      I'm curious what you estimate the transaction cost would be for printing a recyclable paper menu per customer versus the cost of the tech solution per customer. 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.
    - lores 2y ago
      You go to a fancier class of restaurants than I do :)
      - ixwt 2y ago
        Likely not. The most egregious offenders around me are Mexican restaurants. They often have 4 or 5 double sided page menus.
- deleted 2y ago
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the_snooze 2y ago
>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. 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.
- cesarb 2y ago
  > There's a reason why pretty much all states use paper ballots instead of electronic-only voting. 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.)
  - DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
    this sounds terrifying. how can one.
halgir 2y ago
Reminds me of a UX course I took many years ago at uni. 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.
- DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
  > I suggested hanging printed paper maps on the walls with "you are here" stickers &thumbsup;
- M95D 2y ago
  What was the result of the exercise? Who's solution was "correct"? I would install direction indicators, like the ones on the roads.
  - halgir 2y ago
    I think we used the solutions as a vehicle for discussion, rather than settling on a "correct" one. Though I can't recall for certain, it was well over a decade ago. 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.

ixwt 2y ago

I'm not quite sure how having to reprint paper menus is cheaper than a static CDN website. Especially if you have multiple locations. 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.

JohnFen 2y ago
> As much as people hate this QR stuff, it's generally better, provided it works I can see it being better for the restaurant. I don't see how it's better for the customers, even if it works.
- ixwt 2y ago
  I can Ctrl+F on a web menu. I have to manually scan to find stuff in a paper menu for one.
  - DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
    I can do Ctrl-Q, Ctrl-C and Alt-F4 depending on the location, and yes I give a Ctrl-F as for QR
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > I can Ctrl+F on a web menu. 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.
    - ixwt 2y ago
      > On your smartphone? I'm not talking about looking at a menu from home, I'm talking about ordering at the table. 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.
      - JohnFen 2y ago
        I should also mention my personal bias here: if I'm at a restaurant (or any other socializing event), the very last thing I want to be doing is interacting with a screen of any sort. I want to be present and enjoy the people I'm with, not using a computer. 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.
lores 2y ago
Printing menus only costs about 2 minutes of a dev's time, anyone in the restaurant can do it, there's no need to involve a third party who may not be responsive, and the fact it never fails to work is huge. We tech people often ignore the sheer amount of grief we go through because we're used to fixing things and confident we can. A restaurant owner will experience far higher cognitive load and frustration - and if the site goes down in business time, it's total hell. Not easily worth it.
- ixwt 2y ago
  Restaurants don't often print their menus in house. They get the printed at a print shop. Which takes time, and labor. And unless you're doing them at volume, isn't a negligible costs. Don't get me wrong, I prefer paper menus. But I see why so many restaurants want to do QR code.
  - wbshaw 2y ago
    I'm curious what you estimate the transaction cost would be for printing a recyclable paper menu per customer versus the cost of the tech solution per customer. 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.
  - lores 2y ago
    You go to a fancier class of restaurants than I do :)
    - ixwt 2y ago
      Likely not. The most egregious offenders around me are Mexican restaurants. They often have 4 or 5 double sided page menus.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

the_snooze 2y ago

>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. 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.

cesarb 2y ago
> There's a reason why pretty much all states use paper ballots instead of electronic-only voting. 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.)
- DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
  this sounds terrifying. how can one.

halgir 2y ago

Reminds me of a UX course I took many years ago at uni. 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.

DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
> I suggested hanging printed paper maps on the walls with "you are here" stickers &thumbsup;
M95D 2y ago
What was the result of the exercise? Who's solution was "correct"? I would install direction indicators, like the ones on the roads.
- halgir 2y ago
  I think we used the solutions as a vehicle for discussion, rather than settling on a "correct" one. Though I can't recall for certain, it was well over a decade ago. 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.