You know, those weird pictograms?
300x the Information
Back in the early 00's I booked a flight with Southwest Air and printed my boarding pass (yes, that was a thing) at home. I knew the scanning process for using a boarding pass like this from previous flights, but the print looked wrong. There was no barcode like I knew from previous flights; heck on every package in the supermarket. I printed it again. Again, the barcode was not there but a mess of little squares in a messy fashion formed into a larger square. This was not the code I would need to get through the airport. I printed it once more. With 3 copies of my boarding pass all with the same square blob of smaller squares I resigned to the fact that I would have to go to the counter at the airport and have them assist me. Well, as we all know now I was ushered into the world of QR Codes. I will link to an interesting article going through the history and why they are so omnipresent today but I was convinced the printer I had was broken.
https://wp.nyu.edu/dispatch/origin-of-qr-codes-and-why-theyre-on-the-rise/
These strange pictograms have been around since the 1990s and many have never had to experience them or been forced to use them. I was recently in the US state of Colorado where due to the pandemic unusual practices were in effect. I was at a breakfast spot in Boulder where I was greeted with the information that the menu was „online“ and I needed to use my phone to scan a code on the table to see the menu.
There is nothing new anymore about QR codes but I had not seen one used for menus before. So it seemed logical that this health crisis and businesses being pushed to protect their employees and their patrons had this technology promoted to a „new normal“. I have been a promoter of QR codes for at least 8 years and had complained that their adoption had been too slow. Why read the instruction manual to my new printer when I could scan a code and be shown a brief video on how to set it up?
My Experience
The restaurant I sat down at in Boulder on Pearl Street has outdoor seating as most places had. I was instructed to scan the code on the table to access the menu. A few minutes later the waiter asked what I wanted for breakfast and I said „I am pretty stressed from the online menu and will just take the breakfast burrito“. The endless scroll of the menu on my phone screen without pictures was not the usual experience I expected. Of course, I had a plan to find a breakfast burrito anyway so that made my decision making easier.
Later I observed a couple who was told the same and when the server came one said „I am so overwhelmed by this I cannot decide“. What I observed was how a technological solution can be applied to a problem in a way that most people don't want. The idea, the concept of a scannable object which can redirect people to a webpage which then offers them the information or options they might be looking for is a marvel of today’s age. However, many are not asking for that.
Think about it. How many times have you held a menu at a restaurant in your hands? A menu is something everyone knows and understands. You pick it up, notice its weight, flip quickly to orient yourself and judge how much work this might take to decide on what to order. Anything else is, well, unusual. Introducing a digital menu via a graphical code is just, well, new at best. Expecting people to have a phone or device which can understand such a code is already a hurdle. The real problem, even for me, was the endless scroll through the menu on my phone screen. I was at entrées and the waiter asked what I wanted to drink and I had to scroll down to the drinks part of the menu. Then back to the main courses as that was the logical next question. The format of the phone is just not useful for a restaurant menu. There were no photos of the food, the work that was used to build a high quality paper menu was missing here. Sure, these are challenging times, but if you want customers to come back again you must meet them halfway.
The couple across from me said they had no idea what to order. They were so overwhelmed by the „scan - view of phone“ experience that they were turned off from the idea of eating. Go figure. The only reason this restaurant existed was to sell food and a patron was saying I don’t feel I can order anything via this process. What is the sense in this? This is an example of technology applied wrongly. Why cannot a paper menu be offered to those overwhelmed by the online option? Is it too much extra work to wipe off those paper or plastic wrapped menus for the next patron? If so, you are not meeting your customers needs. The tech is great for presenting data in a new fashion but not every use is, well, useful.
Steve Jobs said in 1997:
Start with the customer experience and work backwards
I'd be interested in hearing about your QR code experiences. Leave me a comment or send me a message or email. Links can be found below. Have you had great experiences or more frustrating ones?
One more thing
Oh, and that menu experience? Scroll back to the top of this newsletter and take your phone, open the camera app and scan that code on the table I sat at in Boulder. Tell me what you think. I’m truly curious.
/Andrew