How to Check Digital Menu Accessibility at Your Restaurant: Reading, Choosing, Confirming and Staff Assistance

To check whether a restaurant’s digital menu is accessible, make sure customers can understand dish names, prices and options together, find feedback when they interact with it, and get help from a staff member if needed. It is more useful to check reading, choosing, confirmation and bill information separately than simply to see whether the QR code opens.

The European Commission announced on 2025-6-27 that the European Accessibility Act would apply from the following day, 2025-6-28, to certain products and services. That date alone does not establish that every restaurant menu is subject to the same obligations.

First, ask a qualified adviser to determine whether the service your restaurant provides is displaying information, e-commerce or another relevant service. Check the service-provider microenterprise exemption, national implementation and any other applicable rules separately. Staff numbers and whether a website accepts orders are factors to consider, not enough on their own to reach a conclusion. Even if you make improvements voluntarily, do not claim that this amounts to compliance certification.

Reading: Can customers match dishes, portions and prices?

Choose items currently on sale that have long names, options and add-ons, then check them using the phone’s text-enlargement settings. Customers should be able to access important information as text, not only in photos. Any included items and extra charges should be shown where customers make their choices. Enlarging a photo may not solve the problem of working out which price applies to which portion.

• Record the details: Note the specific dish, language and page location, rather than simply writing that the menu is hard to read.
• Describe the reading barrier: State whether enlarging text hides the price, makes the portion size hard to find or forces customers to search repeatedly for an explanation.
• Check how information is conveyed: Make sure sold-out items, required choices and error messages are indicated in ways other than colour. Customers should not have to rely on distinguishing red from green.

Choosing: Can customers navigate and make changes?

Ask the person responsible for maintenance to check the labels of controls, focus order and navigation using the devices and assistive technologies the menu actually supports. Go through opening an item, changing its quantity, returning to the previous screen and confirming the choice. Automated checks can help identify issues but cannot replace real-world use; a page opening in a browser does not confirm that it works with assistive technology.

Record the device and assistive technology used, the steps where barriers occur and who is responsible for maintenance. After making changes, repeat the same steps in a separate environment that will not disrupt service. Check other options, prices and return paths too; one successful run does not mean every situation has been checked.

Confirmation: Does the customer know what stage they are at?

Reading a menu, submitting an order, the restaurant accepting it and the kitchen preparing it are different stages. If feedback is unclear, staff should first check the order reference and latest status, then explain what happens next. Do not ask a customer who cannot see the message clearly to submit again just to find out whether the first submission succeeded.

Bills and payment results also need to be checked separately. A standalone card terminal and its provider confirm the external transaction; an internal payment record does not replace the bank’s result. Check whether the relevant pages make the amount and status of this transaction understandable. Refer barriers to the person responsible for maintaining that part of the service; do not treat a different page that appears to work as a substitute for checking it.

Staff assistance: Preserve the choices the customer has already made

Customers should not have to prove they cannot use a phone before asking a staff member for help. When taking over, listen to the choices they have already made and check whether an order has been submitted before continuing to assist. Do not make them scan the QR code from the beginning or choose or pay on their behalf without confirming first. Printed menus, verbal explanations and staff entering an order can help, but the availability of in-person assistance does not automatically mean digital obligations have been replaced.

For dietary questions, the person responsible in the kitchen must answer based on the actual recipe and preparation conditions; do not skip fact-checking to make the process simpler. Provide available assistance during service, and make sure unresolved page issues continue to be followed up by the person responsible for maintenance.

Assign each barrier to the person responsible for it

• Specific details: Record the device, assistive technology, dish or option, and the step where the barrier occurred.
• Practical impact: Note whether the information could not be read, an option could not be selected, the customer could not return to a previous step, or confirmation was unclear. Do not collect unrelated identifying information.
• Action and follow-up: List who is responsible for maintenance, what changes have been made, what remains unresolved and the steps to check again.
• Handover during the shift: Explain what staff can do in the meantime and who will follow up on the customer’s choices.

Adding long descriptions, complex meal deals or another language can change how information is read and understood. Recheck the relevant responsibilities when replacing booking or payment components too. Describe publicly only what has actually been checked, continue to state the limits of the scope and exemptions, and do not present a tool-based check as legal certification.