A well-structured digital restaurant menu has an amazing potential to boost your restaurant sales. You might be surprised to know that it is not always related to its aesthetics. So what it is? Well, it is all about the tools that you use to design your menu and how well you can engage your target audiences through it.
Right from attractive visuals to accurate navigation, everything has a role to play here. If you want to create an enticing digital menu for your restaurant, then this article is for you.
In this article, we will learn about 10 digital restaurant menu design tips to follow in 2024.
What is a Digital Restaurant Menu?
A digital restaurant menu enables customers to access restaurant menus in digital format which is available on various electronic devices.
There are different types of digital restaurant menus available for you to adopt, some of them are mentioned below:
- QR code menus
- Mobile ordering apps
- Tablet menus
- Interactive menus
- Digital menu boards and more
You can choose a specific type of digital menu for your restaurant that perfectly suits your budget and the theme of your restaurant.
Why You Should Have a Digital Restaurant Menus?
If you still do not have a digital menu, it is high time you think about creating one. The main reason behind creating a digital menu is to be a part of modernization. In the competitive landscape of the restaurant industry staying updated is the real success mantra.
Here are the reasons that explain why you should have a digital restaurant menu:
1. Easy to update
It becomes easier for restaurant owners to update pricing, food items and their details on the digital menu. The process is quick and cost-effective if you are using a WordPress plugin such as WP Food Manager. create the most suitable digital menu for your restaurant.
2. Enhances the customer experience
A well-crafted digital restaurant menu helps your customers browse through all your food items and choose their preferred ones with ease.
3. Reduces manual work
Digitization means a reduction in manual effort. The same theory applies in the case of digital restaurant menus. You can update your menu, modify prices as per requirements and do much more with just simple clicks.
4. Affordable
The cost of creating a digital restaurant menu is comparatively less than printing out the menu each time you make some modifications to your menu. Your digital restaurant menus can be updated at any time.
Top 10 Tips to Design Effective Digital Restaurant Menus
Whether you want to amp up your existing restaurant menu or you want to create a brand new digital restaurant menu, the following restaurant menu design tips can be very helpful:
1. Use high-quality images
Your restaurant menu is the first thing that your customers communicate with. That is why it needs to be tempting enough to convince them to place an order.
So if you have decided to add food photos to your menu, make sure you use high-resolution images. If you are on a tight budget you can also use your social media links on your menu to ask customers to visit and find the real photos of your food items.
To utilize this idea, you need to ensure that you post authentic and attractive photos of your restaurant and food items regularly.
2. Consider eye movement patterns
Following the common eye movement pattern while creating a restaurant digital menu is a part of menu engineering which helps build a solid marketing strategy for restaurant owners.
According to many menu engineers, our eyes usually focus on the middle of a page and then they shift to the top right and top left.
On the other hand, some researchers believe that most dinners start with the top left corner of a menu. Some also claim that they are most likely to order the first item that they find on a restaurant menu.
So based on the above directions, it is better to place all your high-priced items at the middle, and top left corner of your digital menu card.
3. Use words wisely
While preparing a menu, make sure you use words that reflect the taste of your dishes. Try adding words like crispy, savory, cheesy and more such words that directly connect with the customer’s brain and taste buds.
In addition to that, describe your menu items clearly along with their ingredients and more.
4. Manage white space well
While spaces in your digital menu, if utilized smartly help you impress your customers to a great extent. To add maximum prominence to your digital menu, incorporate a significant amount of white space in it.
It soothes the eyes and also prevents your customers from feeling overwhelmed. They get the time and space to process the digital menu and order the dish that they like.
5. Use designs based on your requirements
Keep an eye on the size of your digital restaurant menu. Just like too big physical menus can make customers uncomfortable to hold it on a table and place an order digital menus also have some areas to look for.
Do not forget about the customers having vision impairment. Accessing digital menus which are placed above the prep area might be difficult for them. To avoid this, you can create a few printed copies of your restaurant’ menu and serve of it them to help them place an order.
6. Incorporate branding
Branding is one of the most important aspects of your digital restaurant menu. After you present your restaurant brand through the menu. In simple words, you need to create keeping your brand identity in mind.
Always use colors, fonts and styles that carry the essence and vibe of your brand.
7. Avoid overwhelming customers with choices
Creating a perfect menu is an art that you need to grasp. Having a huge digital menu or too many similar items may confuse your customers about what to order.
So it is essential for you ensure that each food item mentioned in your menu is unique. For instance having two or more varieties of steak can make it difficult for your customers to decide which is better.
On the other hand, stretching a digital menu too long may also puts a negative effect on your sales. This is because customers will take more time order and as a result, your restaurant staff will attend less customers in a shift.
So it is always wise and profitable to build a restaurant menu that is short and crisp.
8. Highlight important areas
Whether you are offering a discount or you have some highly profitable food items to show your customers, highlighting such important areas is important to grab attention.
In that case it is good to rely on a professional menu designer who can take care of all these areas.
When it comes to digitization of your restaurant menu, your restaurant website can not be avoided. If you have a dedicated restaurant website, make sure you add a proper food menu to it.
For WordPress restaurant website owners, there are a lot of plugin options. We recommend the WP Food Manager plugin here. It is a feature rich plugin that allows you to add an impressive food menu to your food business website.
With WP Food Manager, you can:
- Create food listings.
- Add and edit food items.
- Remove items as per requirement and do much more.
10. Test and collect feedback
After completing your digital menu design, try gaining feedback from your customers regarding the same. The best thing about digital restaurant menu is that you can make changes to it instantly without much hassle.
Taking feedback helps you identify the areas of improvement and work on it. It becomes easier when it comes to digital menus.
Wrapping up
Whenever you are creating or modifying digital menu restaurants, make sure you make it customer-centric. Always put yourself in your customer’s position, practically use the updated menu, and then finalize it.
We hope that the above mentioned menu design tips will help you create the most suitable digital menu for your restaurant.
