Frame Fiesta Eyeglasses · Dallas, GA
Your eye exam, step by step
Every part of the exam, in the order you’ll actually experience it — so nothing about your visit is a surprise.
8876 Dallas Acworth Hwy, STE 118 · Dallas, GA 30132 · (833) 248-2275
Open Mon–Sat 10–6 · Walk-ins welcome
About 30 minutes, start to finish · No dilation drops · Your prescription is yours to take anywhere
Getting started
The front-counter part is short. You’ll be walked back within a few minutes of finishing the form.
Your intake form — emailed the day you book
We email your intake forms the day you schedule your appointment, so you can fill them in at home, on your own time, and walk in ready to go. If you don’t get to them beforehand, that’s fine — a team member hands you a tablet at the counter and you complete the same form right there. Either way it’s the same questions: who you are, what’s been going on with your eyes, and your health history — the things your doctor needs to know before looking at anything.
You: filling them in before you come is the quickest way through the door.Contacts come out — if you wear them
Several of the measurements only read correctly on your natural eye, so we’ll ask you to take your lenses out before we start. If you’d like your contact lens prescription checked too, keep them with you — they go back in later on.
You: bring a case, or we’ll give you one.Four quick measurements
You sit, rest your chin, and look at a target. These readings give your doctor an objective baseline — measured facts about your eyes — before any of the clinical decisions about your care are made.
Autorefraction — the machine’s first guess
You look into the machine at a small picture that drifts in and out of focus while it reads the shape of your eye. It produces a rough prescription in a few seconds. Nobody prescribes from this number — it’s the starting point your answers later on refine.
You: chin on the rest, look at the picture, don’t try to focus it.Eye pressure — measured with iCare
We check the pressure inside each eye with an iCare tonometer. It works by touching the front of your eye with a probe so light that most people don’t feel it, and it needs no numbing drops. Pressure matters because a rise in it is one of the earliest signals of glaucoma, long before anyone notices a change in their sight. If a reading comes back high, or your two eyes differ, we simply take it again to be sure.
You: sit still and look ahead. It’s over in seconds.Reading your current glasses — lensometry
We put your current pair on a machine that reads exactly what’s in them. It tells us what you’ve been looking through, which makes the change you feel at the end meaningful rather than guesswork.
You: bring the glasses you wear now. We’ll ask if they’re single vision or progressives.Retinal photos — instead of dilation
A camera photographs the back of each eye — the retina, the optic nerve, and the blood vessels running across it. It’s a bright flash for a moment, one photo per eye, and it hands your doctor a detailed look at eye health that no amount of reading a chart can show. We don’t dilate. No drops, no stinging, no blurry afternoon and no driving home in sunglasses at 2pm.
You: chin on the rest, eyes wide, one bright flash per eye.The detailed checks
Your Frame Fiesta team member runs each of these with you, in the room, one at a time. None of them hurt and none of them take long.
Slit lamp photos
A microscope with a bright, narrow band of light lets us photograph the front of your eye in layers — lids, lashes, cornea, and the lens inside. Seven photos per eye. The light is bright but the whole thing is over in a couple of minutes.
You: chin and forehead on the rest, look straight ahead.Eye movement — motility
You follow a pen with your eyes while keeping your head still. It traces a wide letter H, which walks the muscles around each eye through their full range and shows whether they’re all pulling their weight.
You: eyes only — keep the head still, glasses off.Eye alignment — the cover test
We cover and uncover one eye at a time with a small paddle while you look straight ahead, then do the same on the other side. It’s how we see whether both eyes are actually aiming at the same spot, or whether one drifts and the other compensates.
You: glasses off, keep looking at the target.Color vision
You’ll look at a series of circles filled with colored dots and call out the number hiding in each one. Fourteen plates, both eyes open, wearing whatever you normally wear. It takes about a minute.
You: just say what you see — there’s no trick to it.Depth perception — ages 8 to 18
For younger patients only: a pair of special glasses goes on over whatever they’re already wearing, and they tell us which shape lifts off the page. It’s a quick read on how well the two eyes are teaming up — the kind of thing that shows up in schoolwork before it shows up anywhere else.
You: kids usually enjoy this one.Pupil check
Lights down, penlight up. We watch how each pupil reacts on its own, then swing the light between them to compare the two. It’s about thirty seconds of looking straight ahead, and it tells us the nerve pathway behind each eye is doing its job.
You: glasses and contacts off, look into the distance.Where your prescription gets made
Two people look after you: your Frame Fiesta team member, in the room with you the whole time, and your doctor’s team, who join you live on screen in the exam room. Everything measured so far — every photo, every reading — is in front of them as you talk.
Side vision — visual field
One eye covered, looking straight at the screen, you say when you notice movement at the edge of your sight — up, down, left, right. It maps the vision you use without thinking about it, the part that notices a car in the next lane.
You: keep your eyes forward and just call it out.“Better on one… or two?”
The phoropter — the big lens machine everyone pictures — swings in front of you, and you work through pairs of lenses saying which is clearer. This is the part that matters most. Your answers are what turn the machine’s rough first guess into the prescription you’ll actually wear. Reading vision and trial frames follow if you need them.
You: if the two look the same, say so — that’s real information, not a wrong answer.Your doctor finalizes the prescription
Your doctor reviews the whole chart — the retinal and slit lamp photos, the pressures, the measurements, and your answers at the phoropter — and signs off on your glasses prescription, plus contacts if you wear them. Anything they want you to know about your eye health, they tell you then.
You: ask them anything. This is the part people wish they’d used.Contact lens exams and fittings begin at the Dallas shop in September 2026. Here’s what that visit will look like when it opens.
If you wear contact lenses
There’s an extra loop for contact lens wearers — about 45 minutes in total rather than 30. Here’s what the extra time buys.
- Your lenses go back in after the first round of refraction is done.
- We record short videos through the slit lamp of how each lens sits and moves on your eye — the fit matters as much as the power.
- A few questions about how you actually wear them: hours a day, comfort by evening, what brand you’re in.
- A second refraction, over your contacts, to measure the vision you’re really getting in them.
- Your doctor finalizes the contact lens prescription, or picks a trial pair for you to try first.
- If we don’t have that trial in stock, we order it and call you the moment it lands, then you come back for a short follow-up.
Bring your lenses — or wear them in — and the boxes if you still have them. Brand, base curve and diameter all go into the prescription, and having the boxes saves guesswork.
You leave with your prescription
Your prescription, in your hand
We settle up at the counter and you walk out with your glasses prescription — and your contact lens prescription if you had one. It’s yours. Fill it here, fill it anywhere; that’s your call and always has been.
Then, if you like, the frame wall
Most people walk straight over while they’re already here. There are 1000+ frames on the floor, an optician to fit them, and most single-vision pairs are finished in about a day — not the two weeks you may be used to.
You: no obligation, and no pressure if you’d rather take the Rx and think about it.Questions people ask first
Is the doctor really examining me, or is it automated?
A licensed doctor, live, looking at your eyes and your images and talking with you — they join you on screen in the exam room rather than walking through the door. Everything physical happens in the room with a Frame Fiesta team member beside you: the photos, the pressure, the alignment checks, the phoropter. Nothing about your prescription is decided by a machine on its own.
Does anything touch my eye?
Nothing in the exam requires touching the eye itself. The measurements are taken with light, cameras and lenses while you look at a target.
How long does the whole thing take?
About 30 minutes for an eye exam, start to finish. A contact lens exam runs about 45, because of the extra fitting work described above.
Will my eyes be dilated?
No. We photograph the retina instead, so there are no dilation drops — nothing to sting, nothing to blur the rest of your day, and you can drive yourself home.
What should I bring?
The glasses you wear now, so we can read what’s in them. If you wear contacts, wear them in or bring them along with the boxes. That’s it.
Can I take my prescription somewhere else?
Yes, always. Your prescription is yours by law and we hand it to you before you leave, whether or not you buy anything from us.
Do you see kids?
Yes. The exam is the same, with one addition — a quick depth-perception check for ages 8 to 18, which tells us how well both eyes are working as a pair.
Contact lenses
Contact lens exams and fittings start at the Dallas shop in September 2026. Everything described above is what that visit will look like when it opens. Until then, we’re seeing patients for eye exams and glasses — and if contacts are what you’re after, book an exam now and we’ll let you know the moment fittings begin.
Book your eye exam