During this challenging time of the Corona virus, I’m ordering restaurant delivery more than usual, usually on my iPhone. And I’m shocked and surprised at how so many restaurants websites are still using PDFs for their food menus, which are useless on a smartphone.
Still using PDFs?!
Some restaurants have very large food menus, and some have different menus for different times of the day. One of my goals as a web designer, is to always provide mobile friendly content, including ALL the food and prices on restaurant menus.
You may have opened the website of a restaurant on your smartphone and felt the relief that it IS mobile friendly, but then you open the FOOD menu and see that everything is too small to read. That’s because they used the same PDF they probably sent to the printer for the paper menus that are in their restaurant. The only way to use this food menu PDF on a smartphone is to do the dreaded zoom-in with your thumb and forefinger. And then you try and slide side to side. Ugh.
We use Responsive Text!
But if you use ME, I will never allow that to happen. I will convert the contents of those PDFs into true website text, making sure those food menus are responsive and smartphone friendly. All those descriptions and prices will be nice and big and easy to read on your phone.
For an example of this, check out Silvio’s Restaurant, a client of mine for many years.
Because of the sharp increase in smartphone usage, we can’t ignore this anymore and use old technology that will be frustrating to users. The restaurant industry is very competitive and having food menus that ARE mobile friendly, gives you an edge over that competition.