Digital menu board sizes, layouts, and templates

How many screens you need, what size, portrait or landscape, and how many items fit on a panel before it stops being readable.

The most common mistake with a digital menu board is treating it like a printed menu. A printed menu is read from 40 centimetres away; a menu board is read from three to six metres away, by someone standing in a queue with about eight seconds to decide. That difference should drive every layout decision.

How big should the screen be?

A reasonable rule of thumb: the smallest text on the board should be about one centimetre tall for every three metres of viewing distance. On a 55-inch screen that means body text of roughly 30 to 36 pixels at 1080p, and item names larger than that.

• Counter service, customer within 2–3 m: a 43" to 50" screen is plenty.
• Queue that forms 4–6 m back: 55" or larger, or split across two screens.
• Drive-thru: 49"+ high-brightness outdoor-rated display, fewer items, bigger type.

Portrait or landscape?

Landscape suits a category grid — a triple-panel wall where each screen holds one section. Portrait suits a single vertical list and fits narrow wall space above a counter. Portrait also reads faster for a straight top-to-bottom price list, which is why coffee shops so often use it.

How many panels

1. 01One screen: up to about 8 to 10 items. Beyond that people stop reading.
2. 02Two screens: split by category, for example food on the left and drinks on the right.
3. 03Three screens: the classic quick-service wall — mains, sides and drinks, and combos or promotions.

What goes on the board

• Item name, short description of no more than six words, and price. Nothing else.
• One hero image per panel at most. A wall of photos makes the prices harder to find.
• Group by how people order, not by how your POS is organised.
• Put the highest-margin items at the top left of each panel, where the eye lands first.
• Leave real empty space. Crowding is what makes a board look cheap.

Day-parting

Do not build one board with breakfast crossed out after 11. Build a breakfast playlist, a lunch playlist, and a dinner playlist, then schedule each one to its own time window. The screens change themselves and the board is only ever showing what you are actually serving.

Using templates

In Aldivue you start from a slide template, type your item names and prices, and save. There is no design tool to learn and nothing to re-export when a price changes — you edit the slide and the screens pick it up. That matters more than it sounds: a board only stays accurate if changing it takes a minute, not an afternoon.