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The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

mcdonalds.co.jp

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Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#271

Post by slumberlust »

aidenn0 wrote: post #162
ssl-3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, then their mobile app team must be both completely separate and isolated from all communications. Because it's really bad. And it's been bad for a really long time. When all I want is to order a cheap cup of coffee, I get to stare at a throbbing box of fries while it tries to figure that out. Get to the restaurant and signal my arrival? More throbbing fries. Sometimes the fries never stop throbbing an…

I have a half-serious theory that their mobile app is for price discrimination. The best deals are only available in the app, but the experience is so bad that you'll only use it if you really need to.

Jokes on them. I'm so sick of apps I just don't eat there anymore. Win win for my gut and wallet!

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#272

Post by jasomill »

zarzavat wrote: post #236
SoftTalker wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's 10x faster. In can say "big mac meal" and be done while the kiosk ordering machine is still loading the first screen.

Just wait until you have to make a complicated order in a country where people don't speak English very well, you will be very thankful for the kiosks. Even the US has two languages.

Yeah, the app and kiosks are slow and buggy, but I've never had a custom order prepared wrong with the kiosk or app. And as slow as it is, it's still almost always faster than ordering in person because your order is usually ready when you arrive and you never have to wait in line at the register or drive thru (assuming you choose to pick up at the counter, which you should if the dining room is open and you don't want to wait).

Also, when the app or kiosk bugs out and fails to correctly process an offer, or lose an order, McDonald's cashiers and managers are in my experience typically trained to set things right. Not only will cashiers honor "app only" deals at the register when something goes wrong, managers will occasionally comp the entire order.

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#273

Post by mplanchard »

rschiavone wrote: post #232
glenstein wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! It's genuinely fascinating, and it's the kind of thing I trust this community to talk about in a reasonable way which is not quite always the case (Mozilla, many politics topics). But this feels like, potentially, AI prompting or even more interestingly an intentional stylistic choice.

In Japan, pictures of food are legally required to faithfully represent the actual food you get, AI-generated pictures wouldn't fly with their laws.

Not sure about this, given that sufficiently accurate plastic simulacra satisfy the law, right? Is it just that it can’t be digitally generated?

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#274

Post by jasomill »

toast0 wrote: post #160
1attice wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's choice exhaustion, a common dark pattern. You get worn down and that makes you more likely to spend more than you need

Yeah, but there's a risk that people won't come back because it's exhausting. I ordered from the wrong location once, and it's fine, they don't work the order until you arrive, and they refund it at the end of the day, but they lost a sale because I was so frustrated that I just drove home without picking up food like I was expecting to. And the way prices are now, you need to order in the app if you want a chance at…

Interesting.

As far as I can tell, they're at least supposed to use location services to start the order when you're nearby. When the store isn't super busy my order is typically ready when I arrive, and I've ordered 10-15 minutes before arrival a few times and my orders weren't cold.

Maybe this is what they're supposed to do, but the system and/or employees don't do it reliably.

Or perhaps it's because I typically do counter pick-up, and almost always have a small (1-3 item) order.

It makes sense that they wouldn't prep your order if you're just going to be waiting in a long drive thru line anyway, though this could obviously lead to further delays because they don't reliably have larger orders finished in the time it takes to get from the speaker to the pick up window.

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#275

Post by voakbasda »

slumberlust wrote: post #271
aidenn0 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a half-serious theory that their mobile app is for price discrimination. The best deals are only available in the app, but the experience is so bad that you'll only use it if you really need to.

Jokes on them. I'm so sick of apps I just don't eat there anymore. Win win for my gut and wallet!

This. Leaning into touch screens and apps were the last straw for me.

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#276

Post by DrewADesign »

b112 wrote: post #247
DrewADesign wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They effectively don’t do anything in most elevators in the US during normal operation. The ADA requires elevator doors remain open at least 3-seconds. Usually, people-moving elevators are most efficient when doors close as quickly as possible, so they start closing exactly at 3 seconds. I’ve used elevators with less common use cases — huge ones in hospitals, freight elevators, hotel service elevators — that might be…

Nothing you've said indicates why the button does nothing. I can enter an elevator is under a second and push the button. This is doubly faster when not waiting for the doors to open fully, effectively making my button push at 0 seconds from door full open. If you're saying "3 seconds is not long to wait, so it's the same as the button doing nothing", this is false, untrue, and I often use it. Alternatively, requirin…

> Nothing you've said indicates why the button does nothing.

Let me expound a bit —

The close-door button cannot override the ADA minimum 3-second open time… the door must remain open for at least 3 seconds no matter what you press. But, most are configured to automatically close at 3 seconds. So as soon as the door-close function is no longer overridden, the door starts closing anyway, so pressing the button has no effect. With the door-open button and door sensor, they generally start closing immediately when they’re not active, so since the doors are already closing, the door-close button has no effect. If the door-open button is configured to open the door more than momentarily, the door close button should function.

If the elevator is designed to stay open longer than the 3-second period during which the door-close button is overridden, it will be available after the first 3 seconds. So if it’s configured to stay open for 10 seconds, the door-close button will be inactive for 3 seconds, but will start a door close, when pressed, from the 4th through the 10th second. At 10 seconds, the door will be closing anyway.

If a regular people-moving elevator is configured to be capable of closing the door in less than 3 seconds, it’s out-of-code. Since professional elevator companies maintain and configure most (all?) up-to-code elevators, and they’re probably liable for them to some extent, I doubt that’s common. It’s not like I’ve studied it or anything though.

I’m pretty sure that timing it out with a stopwatch would reveal that no matter what is happening, the door stays open for a minimum of 3 seconds. Anything beyond 3 seconds depends on how it’s configured, but most are configured to close as soon as they legally can.

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#277

Post by kelzier »

bcrl wrote: post #71
tbeseda wrote: post #47

I just want to note how fast this page is. 806kB transferred. 766ms to finished. I hit the DFW AWS CloudFront pop from here. Similar page for BK https://www.burgerking.co.jp/menu 31MB transferred. 6.5s to finished. Hits the DEN pop (but it's a "miss"). I am in Colorado. uBlock is on. Even if you don't count the 7.5MB of fonts on the BK page, that's wild.

McDonalds actually seems to have learned to take latency seriously. When their touch screen ordering systems were first deployed, the delay between tapping on an item or button was quite noticeable. These days the systems respond nearly instantaneously. I'm very glad there are people inside such a large organization that pay attention to that aspect of usability. Now if only every other website on the internet would…

Have you used their app though? It shows an offer on opening, that must animate in and out in such a janky way, when really you just want your PIN code to gain points for the order. It's a horribly frustrating UX.

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#278

Post by voakbasda »

a2128 wrote: post #233
ssl-3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, then their mobile app team must be both completely separate and isolated from all communications. Because it's really bad. And it's been bad for a really long time. When all I want is to order a cheap cup of coffee, I get to stare at a throbbing box of fries while it tries to figure that out. Get to the restaurant and signal my arrival? More throbbing fries. Sometimes the fries never stop throbbing an…

I've never once been able to use the McDonald's app over several years and multiple devices. I originally wanted to check the nutritional info of the menu. Download our app, it says. This website is better in our app, it says. The order screen constantly asks me to enter my app code. Collect points in our App! Do you have our App? I give in and finally download the App. "Something's not quite right", you didn't insta…

You will stop being asked when you give up McDonalds. There is no other way out.

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#279

Post by smrtinsert »

alt227 wrote: post #204
Dwedit wrote: post #70

A video posted by McDonalds Canada reveals how they stage the burgers for photographing them. They shift each layer backwards (bun, meat, etc) so that the ingredients of the layer are more visible when photographed. The top bun ends up being a few inches backward compared to the bottom bun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSd0keSj2W8

However, the buns on the Japanese menu are much more obviously askew than other countries menus, which is the interesting point I imagine the OP was getting at. Compare for example with the UK images which are much more symmetrical: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/menu/burgers.html

Maybe the haphazard/devil may care look feels more authentically American

Re: The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

#280

Post by Barbing »

jimmydorry wrote: post #231
Barbing wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anyone who uses the app and orders premium options and uses coupons that don't represent much of a discount... yet, the app STILL takes a long time to load? Causing delays for unprofitable customers. Any business is going to do it if they can. /tinfoil (Their margins shouldn't be this bad.)

I don't want to touch their greasy in-store touch screens that thousands of other people touch. And those "deals" are way cheaper per user than large marketing campaigns, and probably more effective too. I wonder how slow you can make an app before a significant number of people will just order elsewhere? Give it a few more years of downgrades to the app, and I'll have reached it.

They more effective because they can sell our Big Mac consumption to our health insurance company? That is purely an assumption, by the way. Maybe someone tried to write a law once to prevent that.

That's funny about it being bad enough, it just makes you want to leave.

And to anyone reading- be careful with the McDonald's spyware, by the way. You might have it for lunch. Then by dinner time, see a little icon on your phone and realize they've been tracking your precise location all day.

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