Fast-Food Menu Ergonomics - Ow, that crick in my neck...

...Actually, in the photo at left, that's my lovely fiancee whose neck is suffering the aforementioned crick. This is our local Pickup Stix faux-Chinese fast-food joint, where the overhead menus are just a bit too... overhead. Standing back from the counter too far to order, as shown, customers still need to work a pretty good body-lean and head-tilt combo to see the options - and once they're at the counter, forget about it, they better have their order memorized!

The obvious solution: put the menus behind the front-counter employees, like the vast majority of fast-food chains. However, since that probably involves more architectural rework cost than corporations like to write off for customers' comfort, the easier solution is a smaller but otherwise identical version of the menu laminated to the counter surface. That "identical" requirement is important - for the sake of avoiding frustration and maintaining fast-food efficiency, nobody wants customers searching for their choices all over again once they reach the hotseat!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave

You are absolutely right...discomfort resulting from exposure to ergonomic risk factors, such as static postures and repetitive motions, include decreased blood circulation, visual problems, headaches, and fatigue.