Frozen yogurt. It seems easy enough. First off, what would you think “natural frozen yogurt” means? One might say that ‘natural’ means free from artificial flavors, colors and preservatives. Well, Cherry On Top believes that natural actually means “mostly all natural ingredients.”

Every single one of their products has artificial flavor in the ingredient list. Click here to see this PDF of their nutrition facts. In July, I went to the website and submitted a comment about how calling an artificial product natural is misleading. The agent from the company apologized and told me that the Orange store was one of the first stores and that is why it still has items with their old catchphrase “Natural Frozen Yogurt.”  It is now September and as you can see, the cups still say “natural.” What is worse, they have now switched the name placards in front of the machines so they do not contain the ingredient list any longer (yes, they used to list nutrition and ingredient facts on the placards). Now, if you want to know about the artificial flavor in their yogurt, you’ll have to ask for an ingredient list. Tricky.

But I degrees, the real issue is the displays they have behind the payment area. Last night I ended up going to buy some unnatural frozen yogurt to cleanse my palate of the Haven Gastropub (nice theming, meh food) and noticed that they were not working correctly.

It appears that the displays are actually running from one Windows XP computer that displays flash animation in Internet Explorer windows. Why could I tell this? Take a look:

Oops. This does explain why the animation is jerky and jagged. Annoyingly, the content of the display changes in such a way that the price per ounce of ice cream isn’t constantly displayed. It would be better for Cherry On Top to create content that is synced with all three displays, ensuring that important information (such as the price) is constantly available. Flash and Internet Explorer do not appear to be providing a seamless experience either.

As the displays are currently setup, they function only as a novelty.

Each of the three displays is an off-the-shelf Samsung LCD television. The bezel on this model is not uniformly sized and the samsung logo and model name is printed on the plastic. Cherry On Top has decided to mount the displays in a portrait format which makes the logo seem even more out of place. I feel like they might not be properly aligned but I need to take a picture with a real camera to check.

Have you been to Pei Wei Asian Diner lately? You haven’t?  No bueno. Why don’t you go right now? Why? Because you can check out the new digital menus and [at some locations] Coca-Cola Freestyle vending device!

First off just so you know, Pei Wei was established in 2001 and now has over 150 locations in 15 states. They serve wok-seared contemporary pan-Asian cuisine and are a “faster more casual take of our parent company, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro.”

– Thanks Pei Wei website. If you read my other post on bad displays, you know how I think that the design of a information display shouldn’t distract the users from the information. Pei Wei seems to have the same obsession I have. [yay] As you can see, the new menu displays are seamlessly integrated into the existing containers without any branding or ugly bezel.

The actual content on the displays is also well designed. It is dynamic but easy to read. You can see there is a section on each display that shows some type of video loop but the text areas are crisp.

The brightness level is more than adequate, it is perhaps even too bright in the hip perpetual darkness of Pei Wei Asian Diner. I imagine that the displays can be updated from the mothership in Arizona, ensuring that you will have the same experience at every location.

An extra bonus at the El Toro location was the Coca-Cola Freestyle ‘future-of-vending’ device. This is that Coke machine that lets you choose over 100 different beverages.

I think the Freestyle machine will be Cokes answer to the increasing dislike of HFCS laced drinks. Basically, you place your cup on the device and utilize the touch screen to choose your beverage. Inside the machine there are ultra concentrated syrup containers and a smart little man who keeps track of what drinks you choose. Oh, it has RFID too.

Here is the deal though, it takes way, way, way too long per transaction. I sat (and ignored my boyfriend) watching people use the machine. On average people took 45 to 60 seconds to choose what they wanted. It wasn’t an issue late at night but during the lunch hour…that is way too long!

I think Coca-Cola can fix the problems with Freestyle pretty easily. First, switch the display from resistive to captive touch screen. I found that I had to press on the display multiple times because it didn’t register. I know passive touch screens are cheeper but this machine could save you…pay for the captive touch to improve the functionality (that’s like the iphone).

Second, give customers a RFID tag of their own. Let users go online and choose their favorite drinks to be associated with their tag. When you go to a Freestyle enabled establishment your tag could enable the machine to to dispense your favorite drink, show all your favorites on one screen or randomly select from one of your favorites…depending what you told it to do. How cool would that be? Maybe it doesn’t even need to be RFID, it could just be facial recognition!

How could you tell this face you can’t have Coca-Cola Zero? So anyway, Pei Wei Asian Diner is a champion of good information display and home to the super cool Coca-Cola Freestyle future of vending device of the future! Go check it out!