Digital Menu Board Scorecard – Cinnabon

Cinnabon is a well known brand with a long history and a distinctive and alluring scent. The chain provides hot and delicious cinnamon buns and a variety of other snack foods and beverages. The following digital menu board scorecard is based on their location in Rosemont, IL.

Creative Design (5/10)

Branding – The BonBites branding is prominently displayed, which helps establish brand recognition and creates a focal point for customers. The distinctive creamy topping on the Cinnabons is attractive and speaks directly to the main reason people choose Cinnabon as their food option

Visual Appeal – The use of a high-quality, appetizing image of stacked drinks effectively showcases the products and entices customers. The vibrant colors used in the BonBites image and the “Treat yourself to BonBites” tagline add visual interest and draw the eye. Unfortunately the left display is damaged and the primary offering of food items is difficult to read at best. As this menu provides the primary food offering menu it is difficult to understand why this display has not been repaired.

The overall design feels cluttered due to the lack of consistent spacing and the abundance of text. The use of space could be enhanced by creating more balanced sections with clear hierarchy and by using images strategically to break up the text-heavy areas. Right now the nice use of images are outside of the primary menu area which doesn’t help to break up the visual space.

Typography – The typography is clean and “on brand” but we found several problems with the typography in general. The varying font sizes, styles, and colors used for the menu items create a visually busy appearance that can be overwhelming for customers. The descriptions are too small to be useful and hurt more than they help. The header for the main category is quite large where the item names and descriptions are quite small. This imbalance should be resolved for better use of the space.

In general, while the creative design has some strong elements, such as the prominent branding and the appealing food images, there are several areas where improvements could be made. By addressing issues like visual clutter, inconsistent formatting, and the lack of a cohesive theme, the design could be elevated to create a more engaging and effective digital menu board experience for customers.

Organization (5/10)

Information Layout – The menu is divided into sections based on product categories, such as coffee drinks, Chillalitas, lemonades, and other drinks. This categorization helps customers quickly locate the type of drink they are interested in, making the menu easier to navigate. If the issues of font size described above can be resolved, the menu would work well to direct customers. The use of separate sections also allows for the possibility of highlighting specific product lines or promotions.

Clarity – The readability of the menu could be enhanced by using a consistent font style and size for the menu items, as well as by providing adequate spacing between lines. The current layout appears cramped and may be challenging to read from a distance, especially for customers with visual impairments. It is important to remember that digital menu boards are not just a listing of offerings but should be looked at as an important marketing tool. Once again points need to be taken off for the damaged screen.

Prioritization – While popular items like the Original Budlong and Chicken Tenders are given prime real estate, there isn’t a systemic approach to prioritizing or highlighting signature/bestselling dishes. Some form of callouts or differentiation could help guide customers. This is an area where high-quality images may also help to direct consumers to items the restaurant would like to sell more of. The information hierarchy within each section is also somewhat flat, with all items presented in a similar manner. Better use of font sizing, spacing, and typography weights could better emphasize important dishes or details.

While the core organization is quite functional, some fine-tuning of the menu architecture, item prioritization, and micro-layout choices could elevate this design significantly in terms of user-friendly information organization.

Physical Setup (5/10)

Displays – This category demonstrates the biggest and most important problem with this digital menu board implementation. It is clear to see from anywhere in the environment that one screen is not working properly. The operator would have been better served by turning this screen off. The current situation is a bad representation of the brand and the operation. With one screen out, and only two of the three showing menu items, this is a significant problem. Digital menu boards give the operator the option of quickly moving the menus around. In this case they could have removed the promo screen content on the right and used that working display for the food menu.

One thing to note about the displays is the very thick bezel (the frame around the screen). This indicates that the screens are quite old. This may be one of the reasons that the left display is not working properly. Commercial displays have a typical useful life of between 5 and 8 years. These displays are likely older than this and should be replaced. Display cost has come down dramatically over the years and it would be well worth the investment.

Details – One detail that we liked was the framing of the displays to make them more integrated with the space. The structure holding the menus is nicely done. The pattern seems a little dated but works with the branding of the location. There are no visible wires which shows that the installation was done with care.

Overall, the physical setup has the one glaring problem of the damaged screen. This needs to be resolved immediately. If this issue is resolved the effectiveness of the digital menu boards will be dramatically increased.