Essay: Analysis Of 2 Aus Fast Food Websites" (48 Characters)

Describe the information technology and communications technology infrastructures employed by business organizations. 

Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu website analysis

Fast food restaurants are kind of restaurants that offer very minimal table service but rather they offer take away services to their customers. These restaurants are characterized with a limited menu and food is prepared based on the customer’s order and packed for the take away services. Being part of the restaurant chains, fast food restaurants operates by providing standardized ingredients and partially prepared foods that are supplied to their customers through controlled supply means [1]. With such a great rise in growth of fast food restaurants, there have been need to provide online services that will enable the restaurants to reach out to many customers as well as enable its customers to view their menu, make orders and do the payment online and later wait for the their orders to be prepared and delivered to them at their comfort [2]. Therefore, there is need for these restaurants to ensure that they have good and quality websites that provide quality services to their customer by ensuring that all the functionalities present are simple and easy to use as well as being attractive to the customer.

This report focus therefore, is to analyze two of the Australian Fast Food Restaurant websites which are: Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu and Pancake Parlour. An analysis of these two websites is carried out by evaluating various features which include their design, ease of use, menu, nutrition information, allergy information, special offers, location information and directions, working hours and contact information. The report also provides each websites advantages and disadvantages based on the findings obtained and the analysis process carried out. Finally, the two websites are ranked based on the effectiveness of their functionalities and ease of usability to their customers [3].

During the evaluation process, the researchers assigned five participants who accessed the two websites and analyzed various functionalities related to these fast food restaurants. The researchers observed the processes and also gave out some questionnaires to be filled by the participants in trying to get their feedback on these two Australian Fast Food Restaurant’s Websites.  The evaluation process was done systematically with the participants first analyzing Zarraffas Coffee Food Menu Website and then Pancake Parlour Website. The participants were given 30 minutes for the analysis of each website and 15 more minutes to answer few questions regarding the evaluation of the chosen websites. The section below provide an in depth analysis of the two websites.

Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu is located at Queensland, Australia and it is a semi national coffee house [4]. The restaurant has a website that provides its customers with relevant information regarding their services. During evaluation process, the website was accessed using url https://zarraffas.com/ which gave access to the home page.

The home page was characterized with a slider that showed various food products that were available at this restaurant as well as a navigation bar at the top of the website to give access to various sections of this website to the customers as shown above. During the evaluation process the following features were analyzed in relation to this website.

Design

This website design was noted to be consistent throughout the entire website. The layout of the website sections such as the header, navigation bar, the body of the website and the footer were all similar across the website [5]. This made it possible for the users of this website to memorize and recall the exact location where the given element is place when using the website. The colors used were also friendly with white and black being the dominant color and corresponded well with the background colors used. The images and the location of various contents were consistent from the homepage to the rest of this website webpages. Therefore, it was found that the website reached all the quality measures for good website designs.

The website had various features that supported navigation form one webpage to the other [6]. Just below the webpage title, the users were able to keep track to which page they were at and could navigate to the home page without even using the main navigation bar at the top

The information used in this website is also simplified and easy to understand thus making it easy to perform an operation while getting to learn more about this restaurants fast food details.

This restaurant’s menu ranges from hot drinks, cold drinks, food, our beans, capsule, syrup, and sauces. The menu is accessible on Our Product menu on the navigation bar. When the user selects any of the menu in the list, a variety of fast food on that category is made available

On clicking on the More Information link on each food, the website shows the nutrition information of each food by showing all the contents contained in it and the amount used in making the chosen food item. An example of this can be shown below about the Zed Bread

The nutrition information allows the customers to make the better decision based on the food they will take in relation to then nutrition contents present in it.

There is no allergy information section present in this website but using the nutrition information present the customers can be able to determine what kind of food they will take that is not allergic to them since it is possible to analyze the content of the food provided. When making orders, the customer can request the restaurant not to put a certain nutritious content that they are allergic to since it is possible to see the ingredients used to make a certain meal.

The website does not have a special offer section which shows some of the meals that are on offer for the customers to order hence it is hard for the customers to know what food is on offer or not.

Using this website, the store link on the navigation bar gives access to store locater that shows various locations of Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu restaurant with their directions from various locations

This makes it easy for the customers to locate a given store in their vicinity and visit them for a good meal. There is a search section as shown above that users can type their location and their distance in kilometers to the next store.

Navigation

From the evaluation of this website, the working hours for this website was not represented in this website hence it was hard to note when the restaurant is open or closed. The Contact section allowed the users to post a message the restaurant as well as view the physical contacts address for the physical location of the restaurant’s Store across Australia

Pancake Par5lour Restaurant ios located in Victoria, Australia and it supplies sweet and savoury pancakes and crepes to its customers [7]. The restaurant is owned by one family and it has a website where more information on their services are provided. The homepage of this website is as shown below and can be accessed via https://www.pancakeparlour.com.au/ .

Also as noted during the evaluation process, the website did not have any allergy information to its customers. In addition, with the lack of nutrition information, it made it impossible for the customers to analyze the contents of their meal hence avoiding those food that contained any ingredients that they may be allergic to. 

This restaurant have captured this feature on the promotion sections. Here the customers are able to view foods that are on offer depending on various events such as birthday and so on.

On the navigation bar, the users are able to access the locations of this restaurant. This section shows the exact directions as well as maps to guide the customers who wishes to visit their restaurants. Here the customers can as well search for their location themselves using the search field provided

Therefore, based on the above evaluation of Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu and Pancake Parlour Websites, it can be noted that Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu website has many advantages that Pancake Parlour Website. These advantages include:

The website has good design that is consistent and attractive to its users. The background colors, the elements and the font size used are user friendly and remain consistent across the entire website [8]. The website has also not used many background colors as it is the case in the Pancake Parlour Website. 

The inclusion of the nutritious information on this website also gives it an upper hand over Pancake Parlour website [9]. This information provides a detailed information about this restaurants meals and hence the customer is able to choose what he or she wants based on this information [10]. 

Another advantage of Zarraffa’s Coffee Food Menu website is the consistent layout of the element and the fact that the user can be able to keep track of where he or she is at any given time. This makes it more interactive and easier to use as compared to Pancake Parlour Website [11].

Apart from the above advantages, the only disadvantage that this website has over Pancake Parlour is that it does not have a special offer sections to show some of the meals that the restaurant is providing at an offer. 

Also the two websites, lack very critical information that shows their working days and hours [12] in order to keep the customer informed in knowing when to seek their services. 

From these findings therefore, Zarraffas Coffee Food Menu website is ranked position one as it has observed various website usability features that enhance ease of use and make it more attractive to the target user.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is therefore evident that based on this fast food website evaluation, there are a number of important information that every fast food website should have for it to be more effective. The websites should be complete with Menus, Nutrition Information, allergy details, restaurant locations and working hours indicated in their contents. Also the websites should be easy to use by ensuring that the design is user friendly and is the same across all the web pages in order to enable the users to interact well with it.

References

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[2] D. BROX, "Fast Food Fast", QSR magazine, 2010. [Online]. Available: https://www.qsrmagazine.com/ordering/fast-food-fast. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[3] Spritzweb, "Good Website Characteristics", Spritzweb.com, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://www.spritzweb.com/resources/good-website-characteristics.html. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[4] Zarraffas, "Home - Zarraffa's Coffee", Zarraffa's Coffee, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://zarraffas.com/. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[5] M. Eriksson, "What is HCI (human-computer interaction)? - Definition from WhatIs.com", SearchSoftwareQuality, 2007. [Online]. Available: https://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/HCI-human-computer-interaction. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018]. 

[6] IbisWorld, "Fast Food and Takeaway Food Services – Australia Industry Report | IBISWorld", Ibisworld.com.au, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/accommodation-food-services/fast-takeaway-food-services.html. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[7]P. Parlour, "Home", The Pancake Parlour, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.pancakeparlour.com.au/. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

 [8]A. Niger, "Test Your Website Like a Pro! A Checklist to Perform User Acceptance Testing (UAT)", Grype Solutions, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://grype.ca/blog/test-your-website-pro-checklist-perform-user-acceptance-testing-uat. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[9]B. Keythman, "What Are Some Qualities or Characteristics That Make a Good Restaurant?", Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/qualities-characteristics-make-good-restaurant-38863.html. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[10]E. UK, "Characteristics Of The Fast Food Sector Business Essay", UKEssays, 2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/business/characteristics-of-the-fast-food-sector-business-essay.php. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].

[11]M. Lee, "10 Characteristics of a Good Restaurant", Leaveitwithmytummy.blogspot.co.ke, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://leaveitwithmytummy.blogspot.co.ke/2012/10/10-characteristics-of-]

[12]S. Quain, "What Are Some Qualities or Characteristics That Make a Good Restaurant?", Yourbusiness.azcentral.com, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/qualities-characteristics-make-good-restaurant-8377.html. [Accessed: 27- May- 2018].