JOSEPH BANH, MA Design Strategy + Research + Human-Centred Innovation + CX Program Design    
Toronto, CA   |   josephbanh@gmail.com  |  
+1.416.706.7663  |    https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephbanh/



FEAST


Food Feelings



“Meaningfulness represents what matters to individuals. It motivates them, can be a goal in participating in an activity, and provides purpose to traditions.” - Lucy M. Long, Founder, The Center for Food and Culture

Our connection to food is deep and continually evolving. In an always-on, socially connected, globalized world, where food trends come and go, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that food, and our relationship to it, is an important aspect of human identity formation, socialization, and meaning-making.

This project started with a duo brief - to create a high-fidelity prototype to pitch to a national food retailer and simultaneously develop an exploratory research method and tool that combines affect, emotion, and storytelling. The final product, The Omnivore’s Feast is both a standalone interactive food experience and an interactive digital cultural probe created for user research. A seemingly infinite feast of dishes is presented to users who are encouraged to explore the dishes that catch their attention. It uses the visual language of “food porn” and social media food trends as an entry point to access deeper user associations and relationships with food through appeals to the senses and memory.

In developing the product, we applied a Folklore and Foodways framework to the content strategy and design of the interactive. We also incorporated the Foodways approach into the data analysis methodology.

The central concerns of The Omnivore’s Feast experience probe that guided our research are:

What can we learn about what matters most to people by     exploring their personal connections to food?

What insights can we glean by enabling users to explore and map out their personal food culture?

A study was conducted at xlab that included Omnivore’s Feast session analytics, biometric data capture with iMotions and Affectiva’s Emotion AI, ethnographic interviews, and autobiographical storytelling. 

Insights from the study will inform product refinement, identification of opportunity areas for business development, and concepts for future experience prototypes.


Project Credits

Joseph Banh / Concept, strategy, research, research design, copywriting, product owner

Anthony Furia / Creative concept, creative direction, UI/UX, data planning & management

Frank Bar / Motion design

Raza Merchant / Web development, analytics dashboard

Rina Reyes / Design


Legend

  1. The Omninvore’s Feast concept riffs off of the concept of the Omnivore’s Dilemma - or the challenge of deciding what to eat given humans can eat a variety of plants, animals, and insects. 
  2. Key ingredients were researched and incorporated for deeper exploration
  3. Tastes, flavours, food processes, symbolism and contexts were researched and presented to encourage reflection and comparison. A Feast profile was built at the end of the user session based on session analytics as a takeaway to be used in follow-up research sessions as a secondary probe.
  4. 50 dishes were selected that are representative of Toronto’s diverse inhabitants and cultures
  5. iMotions biometric research software with Affectiva Emotion AI was utilized during research sessions to understand the emotional dimensions of participant’s live experience and narrative recall of meaningful food-related episodes
  6. A view of the research set-up at xlab
  7. Miles giving good boy energy
  8. Physical Feast cards were designed as memory prompts for the  autobiographical narrative session of the study
  9. Participants during research sessions