User requirements and design guidelines for digital restaurant menus

Abstract

Digital media have reached the domain of gastronomy, starting with printed restaurant menus being replaced by digital menus. While these allow for enriching a guest's stay in a restaurant, there is risk that the additional information offer might also overwhelm the guest. In this paper we present three studies on design aspects of digital restaurant menus. We conducted an online survey concerning guests' perceptions of paper-based menus and their expectations to digital menus. We conducted semi-structured interviews with employees of a restaurant to learn about their views and requirements and discussed with an owner of a fine dining restaurant potential uses of a digital menu. Subsequently, we built a prototype and evaluated it with a specific target audience. This study provided us with additional insights into user interface (UI) aspects. From our findings we distilled and contribute guidelines for designing digital restaurant menus.