Luigia is Katy's and her husband Tamino's favourite restaurant. The food is great, the drinks are great, and as Katy puts it: "it's a banger every time." They go often. They bring friends and family.

There's just one problem. The digital menu experience is, to put it gently, not great.

We fixed it in under 30 minutes. Here's the story.

A quick note: This isn't meant as an attack on Luigia. We love the place. The point of Roast My Product is to put our design thinking to work and show businesses how small UX changes can make a real difference. We want to build great experiences for users — this series is how we stretch those muscles in public.

The Luigia experience (as told by Katy)

First visit. Katy and Tamino show up without a reservation. It's a popular spot, so they're standing in line outside. Fine — the smell from the kitchen and the woodfire pizza oven visible through the entrance make the wait bearable.

Ten minutes later, they're seated. On the table: a QR code. They scan it, and that's where things go sideways.

Katy starts scrolling through the menu. And scrolling. And scrolling. The thing is endless. She finally stops at something that looks good in the photo, only to realise the description is in French. Her French is limited, but she can make out a fish emoji. She's vegetarian. Back to scrolling.

Meanwhile, Tamino has already given up exploring and defaulted to his go-to at any pizza place: Margherita with buffalo mozzarella, extra mushrooms, sparkling water. Done.

Katy, who actually wanted to try something new, sighs. Locks her phone. Orders the same thing times two.

The food arrives and it's delicious. But both of them leave feeling like they missed out on what Luigia actually has to offer.

Second visit. They go back. This time they have a strategy. While standing in line, Tamino scrolls through the menu and Katy writes down anything that sounds good and has the right dietary emojis — using the Notes app on her phone.

When the waiter comes, they're ready. Date night is a success. And from that point on, they stop using Luigia's menu entirely. They just order from Katy's personal note every time.

What's actually going wrong

Three things, all caused by the same root problem: the menu is too long with no way to navigate it.

Exploring the menu isn't productive. Nobody's leisurely browsing. They're frantically scrolling through an endless list while hungry, trying to find something that matches their language, dietary needs, and taste — all at once. Most give up.

People default to safe choices. Tamino orders Margherita every time. Not because he doesn't want to try something new, but because the menu makes trying something new feel like work. That's a loss for the restaurant — the whole point of a place like Luigia is the breadth of what they offer.

Users build their own workarounds. Katy's Notes app solution is clever, but it's a red flag. When your customers build their own tools to compensate for your UX, something is broken.

Our fix

Roya, our lead designer, put together a redesigned flow. Four screens. The whole thing took us less than half an hour.

Scan the QR code, pick your language. You're greeted by a friendly face. Choose English, French, German, Italian — whatever you need. No more guessing what "branzino" means when you're a vegetarian trying to eat dinner.

Select your dietary preference. Vegetarian, vegan, no restrictions — pick one and the menu filters itself before you even start browsing. The endless scroll becomes a manageable list.

Browse with a sticky navigation header. Now you're only seeing dishes that match your preferences, and you can jump between menu sections — starters, mains, pizza, dessert — from anywhere in the list. No more scrolling past 40 items to get to drinks.

Save to order. Tap a dish and it gets added to a little order bar at the bottom. Pull it down to keep browsing, pull it up to review what you've picked. When the waiter comes, show them your phone. Done.

No more Katy's Notes app. No more defaulting to Margherita out of frustration. No more scrolling through French fish dishes as a vegetarian.

The takeaway

Sometimes the fix really is this simple. We didn't redesign the restaurant's brand or rebuild their tech stack. We added a language selector, a dietary filter, sticky navigation, and a save-to-order feature. Four things. Under 30 minutes of design work.

That's what good UX is about — removing the friction between what people want to do and actually doing it.

Want us to roast your product? Send a proposal to kwirz@pyango.ch with the subject "Roast my (your project name)." Or if you want the full package — design, development, ongoing partnership — check out our CTO as a Service offering. Shouldn't take more than six minutes to know if it's the right fit.

Roast my Product Episode 1: Luigia digital menu

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