Holistic Assessment of Situated Cooking Interactions: Preliminary Results of an Observational Study

This study presents the preliminary results of in situ observations of 2 cooking moments among 16 households. The aim of the study was to map the domestic cooking ecosystem from a user’s perspective and define which components of that environment influence the user’s cooking experience. Preliminary results show that contextual components and in particular, situations, shape cooking experiences in the domestic kitchen. Four opposite situational contexts, i.e., cooking for oneself or cooking for guests, cooking on a weekday or cooking during the weekend, cooking routine dishes or cooking dishes for the first time, and cooking alone or cooking together were distinguished. Situational context will influence temporal context, social context, physical context perceptions and information and task context of the cooking activity. These will in turn influence interactions with objects (i.e., ingredients, kitchen utensils), kitchen technology and their interfaces, content and other people present during the cooking activity. This study suggests that future kitchen technologies can match or enhance current practices only if designers and user researchers understand and define their situational context. This study goes beyond the state of the art, as this is the first study that aims to provide a holistic analysis of the current state of domestic cooking experiences using in-situ observations in order to inform design of future technologies. Implications for design are discussed.