Where you Look Depends on What you are Willing to Afford: Eye Tracking in Menus

Abstract

The first impression that diners receive from a food and beverage establishment is via its menu, which conveys more information than just price and food offerings. Despite evidence that suggests possible gaze patterns across restaurant menus, it remains largely unknown how different consumers process this information across different types of menus. Hence, the present study aims to examine consumer visual patterns across traditional Chinese menus compared with regular menus in relation to their price-consciousness, using eye-tracking methodology. Contrary to previous studies that suggest general patterns of scanpaths in reading menus, the findings of the current study note that “price-conscious” consumers exhibit different gaze patterns. Additionally, the menu layout appears to play a role in consumer processing of menu-related data as well. Thus, it is important that restauranteurs define their target consumers and design their menus accordingly.

Building Theory From Practice: Mapping Executive Chefs’ Menu Planning Processes Using a Flowchart

“…Menu engineering is a complex endeavor with lots of decisions (Glanz et al, 2007; Hou et al, 2015; Ngan et al, 2020). If there are no standardized procedures and clear instructions to follow, the process can become disorganized.…”

“…The group using MPQV found the MPQV tool useful. Some studies investigate the criteria used for the selection of menu items (e.g., Dodds et al, 2014; Glanz et al, 2007; Ngan et al, 2020; Ozdemir & Caliskan, 2014).…”

“…One sees that planning involves multiple decisions, such as menu layout (Flessas et al, 2015), and presentation (Mohammed Baiomy et al, 2013). There are concerns such as when to change menu items, and who to involve in the decision making (Glanz et al, 2007; Hou et al, 2015; Ngan et al, 2020).…”

Influence of Label Design and Country of Origin Information in Wines on Consumers’ Visual, Sensory, and Emotional Responses

“…The provisioning of day-to-day foods and beverages involves conscious and unconscious visual inspections of labels for the brand, color, character, nutrition, or other features, and most of the time, this gazing behavior involves both top-down and bottom-up processes during the decision-making [ 13 ]. Increasingly, research efforts were recorded recently where eye-tracking was used, for instance, to assess nutrition label usage [ 14 ], wine labels design [ 15 ] and purchase intention [ 16 ], emotions [ 17 ], restaurant menus [ 18 ], and other related uses [ 19 ]. Other examples of the use of eye-tracking include the modification of labels to improve the consumer understanding of the information that is presented.…”

Exploring Destination Choice Intention by Using the Tourism Photographic: From the Perspectives of Visual Esthetic Processing

“…Many feelings are affected by the initial visual perception. From the perspectives of the tourists, a photographic image as one of the most salient visual information can unconsciously influence their choice behaviors ( Ngan et al, 2020 ). From the perspectives of the destination providers, the photographic image is crucial for managers owing to its relationship with destination marketing strategies.…”