Healthy eating is essential to overall well-being. Deciding what and how to eat often requires collaboration and coordination with others to develop routines and create enjoyable experiences. However, life changes like moving or unemployment can disrupt food routines and social dining. Current technologies often overlook these evolving changes and do not adequately support individuals in collaborating with others to adapt to these impacts. In this paper, we interviewed 18 participants who experienced various routine changes during life events. Findings highlight the need for tools to support individuals in adapting to food practices, facilitating social coordination, and mediating conflicts during transitions. We explore design opportunities that facilitate technology reconfiguration, value clarification and mediation, and social coordination, aiming to better support individuals in times of change, both for those who undergo life events and others who offer help with food practices. Our work offers design considerations for technologies that enhance healthy eating and food service, ensuring sustained support during life changes.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713183
Computational intelligence is increasingly common in interactive systems in many domains, including health. Health coaching with conversational agents (CA) can reach wide populations, but the level of computational intelligence needed for a positive coaching experience is unclear. We conducted a study with sixteen individuals with diabetes and prediabetes who used a CA for health coaching, T2 Coach. Qualitative interviews revealed that participants saw T2 Coach as reliable in helping them stay on track with self-management, appreciated the flexibility in choosing personally meaningful goals and engaging on their own terms, and felt it provided encouragement and even compared it favorably with human coaches. However, they also noted that coaching experience could be improved with more fluid conversations, more tailoring to their personal preferences and lifestyles, and more sensitivity to specific contexts, all of which require more computational intelligence. We discuss implications and design directions for more intelligent coaching CA in health.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714404
With advancements in interactive technologies, research in human-food interaction (HFI) has begun to employ interactive sound to enrich the dining experience. However, chefs' creative use of this sonic interactivity as a new "ingredient" in their culinary practices remains underexplored. In response, we conducted an empirical study with six pairs of chefs and diners utilizing SoniCream, an ice cream cone that plays digital sounds while consuming. Through exploration, creation, collaboration, and reflection, we identified four themes concerning culinary creativity, dining experience, interactive sonic gastronomy deployment, and chef-diner interplay. Building on the discussions at the intersection of these themes, we derived four design implications for creating interactive systems that could support chefs' culinary creativity, thereby enriching dining experiences. Ultimately, our work aims to help interaction designers fully incorporate chefs' perspectives into HFI research.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714237
While interest in blending sound with culinary experiences has grown in Human-Food Interaction (HFI), the significance of food’s material properties in shaping sound-related interactions has largely been overlooked. This paper explores the opportunity to enrich the HFI experience by treating food not merely as passive nourishment but as an integral material in computational architecture with input/output capabilities. We introduce “Sonic Delights,” where food is a comestible auditory-gustatory interface to enable users to interact with and consume digital sound. This concept redefines food as a conduit for interactive auditory engagement, shedding light on the untapped multisensory possibilities of merging taste with digital sound. An associated study allowed us to articulate design insights for forthcoming HFI endeavors that seek to weave food into multisensory design, aiming to further the integration of digital interactivity with the culinary arts.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713892
Given the widespread presence of screens during meals, the notion that digital engagement is inherently incompatible with mindfulness. We demonstrate how the strategic design of digital content can enhance two core aspects of mindful eating: slow eating and food awareness. Our research unfolded in three sequential studies: (1). Zoom Eating Study: Contrary to the assumption that video-watching leads to distraction and overeating, this study revealed that subtle video speed manipulations—can promote slower eating (by 15.31%) and controlled food intake (by 9.65%) while maintaining meal satiation and satisfaction. (2). Co-design workshop: Informed the development of ViFeed, a video playback system strategically incorporating subtle speed adjustments and glanceable visual cues. (3). Field Study: A week-long deployment of ViFeed in daily eating demonstrated its efficacy in fostering food awareness, food appreciation, and sustained engagement. By bridging the gap between ideal mindfulness practices and screen-based behaviors, this work offers insights for designing digital-wellbeing interventions that align with, rather than against, existing habits.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713793
Consumer technology is increasingly used to support the self-care of atrial fibrillation (AF), a chronic heart condition that affects physical, emotional, and mental health due to its unpredictability, symptoms, and complications. Through interviews with 29 adults self-tracking while living with AF, we found that consumer technology enabled participants to outsource bodily awareness to their 'digitised heart,' facilitating innovative pill-in-pocket interventions and empowering negotiation in shared decision-making. Drawing on phenomenology, we introduce 'Bodily Doubt' to explain how uncertainty about the body shapes the use of technology in chronic illness and how the use of technology influences uncertainty. Technology mediates 'Bodily Doubt' both by providing reassurance and exacerbating it, particularly when technology fails to adapt to disease progression. Our findings have implications for understanding how technology influences the lived experience of illness, challenging experiential concepts of lived experience in self-tracking and design that foregrounds the experience of the lived body.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713326
To enhance focused eating and dining socialization, previous Human-Food Interaction research has indicated that external devices can support these dining objectives and immersion. However, methods that focus on the food itself and the diners themselves have remained underdeveloped. In this study, we integrated biofeedback with food, utilizing diners' heart rates as a source of the food's appearance to promote focused eating and dining socialization. By employing LED lights, we dynamically displayed diners' real-time physiological signals through the transparency of the food. Results revealed significant effects on various aspects of dining immersion, such as awareness perceptions, attractiveness, attentiveness to each bite, and emotional bonds with the food. Furthermore, to promote dining socialization, we established a “Sharing Bio-Sync Food” dining system to strengthen emotional connections between diners. Based on these findings, we developed tableware that integrates biofeedback into the culinary experience.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713108