One Medium Pepperoni with Olives

The other day I went online to order pizza for delivery. It was a breathtakingly complex and lengthy process, which took me about ten minutes to complete. The interface was very slick, with great color choices, graphics, and animations, but the simple process of ordering a pizza had been turned into a tortuous journey through many crowded, sometimes confusing screens, some of them cross-selling distractions from my core mission.

The pizzas got ordered, were promptly delivered, and were delicious. Overall, pretty good. But still. Being in the midst of building an Electronic Health Record system where doctors and nurses can tell the computer what to do in plain medical language, I couldn't help but to imagine how it would work on my pizza restaurant site: It would have a text bar in the middle of the screen with the question, "What would you like to order?" above it. Here's how one could respond to get it done, with the only remaining step being another simple prompt for billing and tip:

"One medium pepperoni pizza with olives, 1 box of fried marinara sticks, and 1 large cola for delivery now."

And that'd be it, just like you were ordering from a human at the counter. With entering payment information, it'd be done in about 90 seconds, on only one screen.

Which process would you prefer you use for everything you want to order or get done in your everyday life?