Using Web Augmented Reality to add Visual Interactions to Contactless Restaurant Menus in Response To COVID-19

Businesses that are slow to adapt to the digital world risk getting left behind. This research project explores how restaurants can adopt emerging technologies such as web-based augmented reality (WebAR) to improve the customer’s ordering experience during the reopening phases of the economy from COVID-19 and beyond. Many restaurants that were permitted to reopen had to limit their menu offerings, adopted single-use paper menus, or asked customers to scan a QR code to view their digital menus. Standard menus are often engineered to influence customer purchases through clever content placement, visuals and other psychological tactics that increases a restaurant’s profitability. This project demonstrates how WebAR can be used in three different ways to enhance contactless menus to reestablish trust and build purchase confidence for customers. The overall goal was to illustrate how WebAR can reduce the barriers for restaurants to create augmented brand experiences through integration with their existing digital presence and the ease of access to these experiences for their target customers without the need to download apps.