The menu on a screen

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

The café’s tablet menu showed that the mushroom dish had sold out before I reached the counter. On the old paper sheet, that discovery had usually arrived after I had chosen it. I tapped another dish and read its price without asking a busy server to repeat what was available. The screen had prevented one small disappointment rather than supplied a dazzling new way to eat.

A member of staff remained nearby and could show a printed list if someone preferred it. The tablet stayed on the table, so I did not need my own phone or an account. I liked that limit to the innovation. The café had changed the information without making possession of a particular device part of entering the conversation.

When the screen became slow, the server answered our questions directly. Technology did not relieve the café of explaining its food. Used beside that ordinary help, however, the menu gave changing information a useful home. I would judge it by whether a customer could choose confidently, not by whether every table looked modern in a photograph.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

The square code on the table was the whole menu until I asked for another version. My phone was nearly out of charge, and my friend had left hers at home. The server fetched a paper copy politely. We ordered and enjoyed the food, but the first arrangement had made a familiar task depend on something neither of us had brought for that purpose.

I am not campaigning against updated prices or photographs of dishes. I would welcome those details on a café’s own screen or a clearly offered alternative. What troubles me is the assumption that a customer will provide the device, power and attention needed to read the list. A table is somewhere I sometimes choose to put my phone away.

Keep the code for people who like it. Put a plain menu beside it, or say at once that another version is available. The paper need not pretend to know what has just sold out; a server can explain a change. A choice about lunch should not begin with a silent test of what technology a customer has carried into the room.

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about digital menus in cafés. Support your comparisons with detailed references to both texts.