‘Starting from zero’: Hong Kong restaurants begin revamping e-menus, tech measures that leave disabled diners out in the cold amid watchdog call
- More restaurants have introduced electronic queues and digital menus, which are not easily accessible for blind or deaf patrons
- Equality watchdog has urged sector to meet needs of disabled diners, providing 80 best practices such as installing ramps and widening passageways
While visually impaired Keny Yuen can navigate Hong Kong’s chaotic streets on his own, eating out has proven more difficult as restaurants have gone increasingly digital.
“I cannot get a queue ticket on my own, because the kiosk only has a touch screen, and has no screen-reading function,” he said.
Some restaurants have digital menus he can “listen to” by using his phone’s screen-reading function. But that does not work if the menus have mostly pictures, not text.
“Sometimes I use their tablets to place my order, but those devices often have no accessibility features, and even when they do, I cannot adjust the volume or reading speed,” he said.
Yuen, a digital accessibility manager at HSBC, said he hoped catering software developers would follow international standards for digital accessibility and make eating out easier for the disabled community.