Restaurants may want to offer the following to those who are math-phobic and pay by credit card. The bill comes with a space for customers to write the percentage tip they want to leave, as well as whether they want to round up to the nearest quarter or dollar. The restaurant can then calculate the tip and add it to the credit card bill automatically, sparing the customer the perils of multiplication and addition.

If people know the waiter will see the exact percentage they chose to leave them, will this encourage them to tip more? Would customers be uncomfortable with this and prefer to write the tip amount on the credit slip themselves, so as not to have to face the waiter after he knows how much they tipped him? Would people therefore ignore this option if offered and do things the old way even though the waiter would then have good reason to suspect he would be receiving a smaller than usual tip? (Though the person may be leaving a cash tip.) It would be interesting if a restaurant tried this mechanism, so we could see how things would turn out.

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