New Research Suggests You Actually Want QR Code Menus Replaced by… Augmented Reality?

If there’s one bet that will always hit on one of the various “prediction markets” that are now apparently undergirding our economy, it’s that America will take the wrong lesson from a crisis. One of the starkest bits of evidence for this truism is what remains changed in our society post-COVID lockdown. Our all-too-brief tastes of government-funded healthcare and meaningful unemployment relief came and went in the blink of an eye. Even as many restaurants have had to begrudgingly relinquish the “al fresco” dining areas they colonized on sidewalks and parking spaces back to the cars and pedestrians, another innovation of the early pandemic is still going frustratingly strong.

During their initial 2020 boom, QR code menus were an annoyance collectively suffered for the sake of public health. But today, long after the mask mandates were lifted and our government stopped even acknowledging the existence of a virus that’s still very much around (and, uh… surging again), the QR code menu soldiers on like a barnacle that demands “you WILL pull out your phone on this date.” Despite some landmark victories in the arena of pushing back this and other loathed forms of technology creeping onto our plates, some restaurateurs and the consulting firms they overpay doggedly insist that customers love QR code menus; they just don’t know it. Well, new research out of Washington State University posits that consumers want even more screen time baked into their dining experience.

The study, led by Soobin Seo of WSU’s Carson College of Business, seems to suggest that restaurants could boost customer interest in and willingness to tell others about their establishment by adding augmented reality (AR) elements to their digital menus. The researchers’ findings were published in the January edition of the International Journal of Hospitality Management, an industry scientific journal that has (to its credit) previously published research on the prevalence of method variance bias in research published in the hospitality industry’s leading journals, IJHM included.

That said, there’s no reason to doubt Seo and her team’s work is anything but scientifically rigorous. The paper even notes numerous qualifying limitations to its studies and suggests further research would be prudent before widespread adoption by businesses. In fact, digging into the specifics of the team’s methodology reveals several key elements that make it seem we may not necessarily be destined for a future of AR at Arby’s after all.

First, the research’s focus was entirely on the disclosure of a restaurant’s farm-to-table (FTT) supply chain via AR and how that gimmick hypothetically affects a customer’s likelihood to visit the restaurant and tell others about it.

A sample size of 243 study participants were shown one of three menu formats—AR, QR, and classic printed—then asked to imagine ordering the menu’s signature burger dish and digest information about its many FTT ingredients in their menu’s respective format. The participants were then asked about what they gleaned and asked to rate things like their menu’s interactivity, their intention to visit the restaurant, and their intention to share what they learned about their imaginary burger with others. While those with the AR menus did indeed score higher when it came to their willingness to visit, remember, and yap about a theoretical restaurant, their average self-selected response was roughly only .5 higher than those with the QR and paper menus.

Additionally, the researchers studied how that same group of participants responded to the introduction of AR info about the FTT ingredients for familiar brands: McDonald’s and Panera Bread. The responses indicated that AR menus gave McDonald’s more of a bump in “perceived healthiness” than they did for Panera, but the research also noted that this was most likely due to respondents already viewing Panera as the healthier of the two.

“Consumers increasingly want transparency about where their food comes from, but the way that information is presented really matters,” Seo told WSU Insider. “Augmented reality allows restaurants to share that information in a more vivid, interactive, and engaging way.”

That may very well be true, but does vivid, interactive, and engaging info about the farm your Big Mac’s tomatoes came from translate to customers opening their wallets, let alone restaurant owners hiring web developers? The Polymarket odds are still leaning “no.”