15 August, 2011
Restaurants have terrible websites
Posted by Ben Rowland in Usability, Mobile,
The usability guru Jakob Nielsen mentioned this Slate article, "
Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad?" in his latest newsletter, and I agreed so completely that I wanted to share it.
The premise of the article is that restaurant websites tend to be horribly designed and built, replete with animations and ambient music, and impossible to navigate on mobile devices.
While we at Tecture haven't done too many restaurant websites lately, we are avid mobile users (and eaters), and share author Farhad Manjoo's sentiments on the subject (though I'm not certain I agree with his theory that their terrible websites are the products of their enormous restaurateur egos).
Restaurants -- perhaps more than many other businesses -- must optimize their websites for mobile visitors. When I'm on the road and hungry, I typically want to check out a restaurant's menu before I go (or call to order take-out). Sadly, this is almost always impossible due to the prevalence of Flash on restaurant websites, which won't load on Apple's iOS devices (and frequently is so large that it takes forever to load on a device that does support it).
The key functions of a restaurant's website must be accessible quickly and from any device. They are:
- menu
- location
- phone number (or link to make a reservation)
Anything else detracts from what truly matters to the vast majority of their visitors. If you'd like to talk about the fabulous ambience, show a slideshow of the amazing bar, animate some photography of the food, etc., please put it on an "About Us" page and make sure to use javascript so that I can view it from my iPhone if need be.
Finally, make sure the homepage is lightweight and loads almost instantly in any browser and on any device, and clearly directs me quickly to the three key elements. Perhaps mention a prix fixe menu or special event on the homepage as well, but little else belongs there.