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Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

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Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#371

Post by npteljes »

frockington1 wrote: post #333
npteljes wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications should be a public utility, or standardized at least. I can't believe how much we depend on them, despite them being served only by their one corresponding company.

How do you depend so much on push notifications? If you are receiving so many you may want to adjust your settings. It is not good for your mental health nor your productivity to be constantly distracted by notifications on a phone

I don't depend on them but banking apps do, for one, and I'd hate to arrive to a world where the communication channels are all proprietary. In my opinion, protocols should be open, services should be interchangeable. And so push notifications, as a they are means of communication, should be provided as a service so that you could choose providers and such.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#372

Post by seanmcdirmid »

542354234235 wrote: post #329
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are a visiting foreigner without cell phone service and the WiFi requires you to login with a working cell phone number, then you are in 没办法 territory.

Somehow I think that a visiting foreigner that can read Chinese to order off a paper menu is probably also going to have a working phone number in China. Someone that can't read Chinese and needs to use their phone for google translate is probably not going to be able to order off a paper menu either.

You’d be surprised how many overseas Chinese (who have immigrated to somewhere else) who are visiting China are trapped by this. And even foreigners who don’t read Chinese can pick out certain characters of the food they like to eat (you don’t need to read Chinese very well to recognize stereotypical 宫保鸡丁).

China is really bad at exceptions. Many of those restaurants have gotten rid of their paper menus (which didn’t have English anyways, so they aren’t worried about foreigners). It’s like the train station kiosks that can’t deal with you if you don’t have a Chinese ID card.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#373

Post by Symmetry »

mosselman wrote: post #266
bloak wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, pathogens survive longer on a smooth surface than on a rough absorbant surface, and I would guess that they are more likely to be transferred from a smooth surface onto somebody's hand than from a rough absorvant surface. So, taking account of people perhaps not doing all that spraying and wiping properly, a paper menu might turn out to be safer after all.

I could be wrong, as I often am, but I think getting covid from a surface is recently proven to be highly unlikely.

In March of 2020 we were pretty sure that at most 5% of Covid transmissions were through touched surfaces (fomites). Currently we're sure that at most .01% of Covid transmissions are through surfaces and still haven't found clear evidence of it ever actually having happened so literally 0% still can't be ruled out. But upper respiratory tract infections like the flu do actually spread through fomites pretty easily so we've defaulted to the flu playbook for many public health measures.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#374

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

I used a self serve coke machine the other week. You scanned a QR code and then your phone would connect remotely to the machine. You selected your drink and then you pressed the dispense button on your phone. Neat tech but unusable if you don't have data or don't have a good signal. And it had a noticeable delay from pressing the button to when the actual device would stop. If you were unlucky I'm sure that somehow you could end up overfilling your cup and spilling it everywhere. Didn't look like it had much in the way of drainage.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#375

Post by jimbokun »

resonious wrote: post #349
sksksk wrote: post #129

When they work well, they're really good, but when they work badly, they're _really_ bad. The other week, I went for dinner at a place that had a online ordering system. My experience was as follows... Arrive at the table, scan the QR code No phone signal in the restaurant, so I need to connect to the wifi. Connect to the wifi, get a captive portal Need to put my phone number in to connect to the wifi; there is no si…

On the general topic of "technology in restaurants", I've noticed an increasing number of restaurants where the waitstaff uses phones/tablets with some kind of specialized app. This happens often: we start telling them our order, and they have to say "wait a sec.... (taps phone for several seconds) okay what was that?". The "UX" as a patron is pretty bad compared to the waitstaff just whipping out a notepad and scrib…

My favorite UX mental game is "Can you describe the paper interface as a new, innovative system relative to the technology solution?"

So with the paper pad waitress experience:

1. Responsive, zero latency interactions. 2. Accepts free form text entry. 3. No multi step UI control lookups. 4. Allows entry of customer modifications and requests to items. 5. Allows custom abbreviations.

Etc. etc.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#377

Post by grumple »

astura wrote: post #332
monkeynotes wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, restaurants are making you order from an app too?? So now you don't really need your 'exhausted wait staff' so much. Hire less wait staff as a portion are now are underutilized. Now some wait staff have no jobs, and the remainder work the same exhausting shifts. The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard, with less service comes less tips. Now you have a whole industry of overworked AND u…

>The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard The reason they get tips is because they are waitstaff, it has zero to do with how hard they work, it's simply custom to tip waitstaff, even lazy waitstaff. Most employees work just as hard without getting tips (like the people who are actually cooking the food).

Perhaps you are unaware, but in the US, tipped waitstaff only make $2.83/hr in most places (tipped minimum wage). These people need tips in order to make any money. Nobody is working hard for 2.83/hr.

This is changing since now people are refusing to work those jobs. And yes, the entire industry is dumb and corrupt for having this practice in the first place, but it is what it is.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#378

Post by tarsinge »

sofixa wrote: post #293
tarsinge wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from France and I have never seen that, but well there are "restaurants" and restaurants I guess.

Where do you live? In the Paris area it's hard to find a restaurant without a QR code on their tables. Trips in the last year to various cities left me with the impression that QR codes are pretty ubiquitous in most restaurants fancier than your corner kebab shop but below La Tour d'Argent and co.

I live near Paris, but I admit did not go in many restaurants since they have reopened. I was under the impression that QR code only existed in restaurant chains, not in the regular restaurants. I have a hard time to see how the huge range of good restaurants where the menu is on a slate that change everyday and the waiter explain each item to you would use QR code, but I may be wrong.

Re: Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

#379

Post by jamal-kumar »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #236
jbluepolarbear wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this entitlement? Dining at a restaurant is a luxury, if I’m going to spend my money on a luxury, I’m going to choose an experience that is safe, enjoyable, and to my interests. Why are you so upset? Why do you feel that the conditions in place are acceptable? Personally, I grew up quite poor and never got to go to restaurants. It wasn’t until I started making a little money in my late 20s that I could start t…

It's not entitlement. You are entitled to express your opinion that dining in restaurants has become something you no longer enjoy. I think it's worth noting since their existence depends upon pleasing customers. People forget that restaurants are a really modern invention. They were first introduced in France at the turn of the 19th century to provide more than just a way to order one type of food. The main reason t…

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/archaeologists-excav... might want to consider a wider scope of recent archaeological discoveries. I wonder what it was like outside of Europe during this time period too
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