The sweet spot in the eye of the beholder? Exploring the sweet sour spots of Asian restaurant menus

Research on consumer reading (i.e., visual patterns) of Asian restaurant menus is new territory for academic research. This study is the first attempt to scrutinize consumers’ visual patterns toward restaurant menus varied by the combination of page orientation (landscape vs. portrait) and menu script (horizontal vs. vertical). Based on existing menus, four distinct versions were created and tested on 54 participants, while collecting eye-tracking measures. After applying the two-way ANOVA, we found that page orientation, menu scripts, and their interaction do not cause a significant impact on the average total fixation time of the participants. Contingency table tests and the one-way ANOVA reveal that a sweet spot and sour spot exist on three of the four menus studied.