Koi Poke is a vibrant and modern restaurant that specializes in serving fresh, high-quality Hawaiian-style poke bowls. With a focus on using sustainably sourced ingredients and offering a variety of customizable options, Koi Poke aims to provide a delicious and healthy dining experience for all its customers. The digital menu boards reviewed here are in the location in DC Ranch, North Scottsdale, AZ.

Creative Design (Score: 7/10)

Branding – The digital menu boards for Koi Poke are in multiple locations in this location. The digital menu boards shown here are on the back wall where orders are placed. The logo is used on two of the screens which is not necessary, and looks odd on the design. The overall color schemes matches the brand aesthetic and the menus work nicely with the decor of the restaurant.

Visual Appeal – The designs of the digital menu boards are nice but not very readable. There are three primary mistakes made with the design… First the light text on a dark background is harder to read than dark text on a light background. Second is the texture used in the background. This texture competes with the contrast that the letters are searching for to enhance readability. Lastly is the use of all caps for all of the text. All Caps should be used sparingly for items like titles but is usually hard to read when used throughout the menu.

No food photography is used so there is nothing on the menus that helps guide customers towards specialties or unique items. This limitation of the designs make it difficult to market any specific item or present new or limited offerings.

Typography – As mentioned above, the use of all caps makes the text hard to read. The typeface is nice and would be well executed if paired with a different typeface (not all caps) to complement the titles. This would also have made the titles stand out more and enhance scan-ability.

Organization (Score: 6/10)

Information Layout – The menu is well organized to help customers order properly. The left menu goes through a logic flow of the steps required to build a bowl from top to bottom. There are six steps to the ordering process which seems like one or two too many. There are no sections of the menus that help to promote specific items or upsell items. This seems like a missed opportunity.

Clarity – Readability is a big issue with these menus. The items mentioned above make these menus quite hard to read and will force people to struggle through the ordering process. When I was ordering I quickly got confused with how many different proteins I could add. Apparently I could have had multiple proteins but it wasn’t clear from the menus that this was the case.

Physical Setup (Score 8/10)

Displays – The digital screens are high quality and well mounted. There were multiple location in the restaurant with menus which definitely helped with customers waiting to order. There were no visible cables, and no lights causing unnecessary glare. The menus in the picture where spaced nicely (often the are touching but in this case the spacing created a nice look).

This implementation was nice but could definitely be quickly improved by making some design and layout changes. This should be easy to do with digital menu boards and it is a recommendation I would make to the operator.