Within user-centred
design and topics such as
persuasive design,
pleasurable products, and
design for
sustainable behaviour, there is a danger
of
over-determining, pacifying or reducing
people’s diversity.
Taking the case of sustainable
food, we have
looked into the social aspects of
cooking at home, in
specific related to the type of
food that is
purchased. This paper describes what it
means for people to
make more sustainable choices
in food shopping
and how that can be mediated
while taking
different ‘food values’ that household
members have into
account. In a design
experiment, we
developed a service for selecting
daily dinner meals
while supporting choices of
sustainable food
which reported on environmental
impact, health and
nutrition values, and purchase
data. Through
visualizations of alternative food
choices, the
experiment provided a space for
households to
negotiate food values, while opening
up possibilities for changing cooking
practices.
Nordic Design Research Conference 2013
