Type, colour, cur­rency sym­bols and vivid adjec­tives: all items to pay atten­tion to when design­ing menus–but not for aes­thetic reasons.

Sub­tle changes to menus can influ­ence our restau­rant decision-making, as is made obvi­ous by Sarah Kershaw’s excel­lent arti­cle on the psy­chol­ogy of restau­rant menus.

(If you’ve read the arti­cles in my pre­vi­ous post on this topic there is lit­tle new infor­ma­tion in this piece, but it is worth read­ing for the few tasty morsels that are new.)

Some restau­rants use what researchers call decoys. For exam­ple, they may place a really expen­sive item at the top of the menu, so that other dishes look more rea­son­ably priced; research shows that din­ers tend to order nei­ther the most nor least expen­sive items, drift­ing toward the mid­dle. Or restau­rants might play up a prof­itable dish by using more appe­tiz­ing adjec­tives and plac­ing it next to a less prof­itable dish with less descrip­tion so the con­trast entices the diner to order the prof­itable dish. […] Dr. Wansink said that vivid adjec­tives can not only sway a customer’s choice but can also leave them more sat­is­fied at the end of the meal than if they had eaten the same item with­out the descrip­tive labeling.

via @mocost