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‘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

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Hong Kong’s equality watchdog is calling for restaurant operators to make their venues more accessible to people with disabilities. Photo: Shutterstock

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.

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“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.

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