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Psychology and restaurant menus
How to redesign a menu with psychology in mind - the Times covers Danny Meyer's New York City restaurant Tabla, and its recent redesign:
"We thought long and hard about the psychology because this is a complete relaunch of a restaurant entirely through its menu and through the psychology of the menu," Mr. Meyer said. "The chefs write the music and the menu becomes the lyrics, and sometimes the music is gorgeous and it's got the wrong lyrics and the lyrics can torpedo the music."
Tips from the experts:
• don't use the dollar sign on the menu
• try to use red and blue; avoid purple and gray
• use clever names, at least for a chain like Huddle House ("now on the test menu, instead of an omelet and orange juice, there is 'the light and fluffy Heavenly Omelet'")
• use a decoy: place an especially expensive item on the menu to make the others seem more reasonably priced
Coincidentally, I ate at Tabla just this week - a good experience, menu and all. (And no, there were no dollar signs on the menu.)
See also:
• Video of Danny Meyer at Gel 2007
Interesting article. The one thing though that I hope someone, somewhere is teaching is readability. I jokingly wish that there was a law that required restaurant menus to be tested by people over 40 who wear bifocals reading the menu in the typical light of the restaurant. What does it say when you can't read the menu?
I continue to find it ironic that most research in this area is done with table menus, whereas the overwhelming majority of menu interaction is via menu boards. I do a lot of work in this area and there remains a huge opportunity for more research and better research techniques. The biggest issue has to do with optimizing the number of items on the menu. This is the linchpin issue, as it impacts everything else on the board, including (as @Scott Souchock rightly notes) readability. With a paper menu you can add more pages; a menu board only has so many square inches.