Cultural Probe

Tapping the Pulse of Shoppers and Eaters

By: Jessica Headrick and Lily Fulop

For our probes, we asked the question: how are people’s everyday eating habits compared to their desired eating habits and what does that tell us about the “routine” and the “ideal”. We wanted to understand what people’s staple foods and recipes were, and how those compared to the kinds of foods they might like to eat. Several of our probe items explored these ideas. First, we included recipe cards which ask for three “go-to” recipes. Second, there is a paper refrigerator which asks people to label the three foods that they couldn’t go without. And third, the user is given a prompt to create a Pinterest board called “Send Me That” filled with foods that they would love to have delivered to their door (in order to understand what people’s cravings are or the food that they would like to eat but don’t want to cook themselves). We also included some Instagram frames to prompt people to take pictures of their food in three categories: #GuiltyPleasure, #SnackTime, #ComfortFood.

Finally, since our project is framed within the grocery store experience, we provided a map of a grocery store and stickers to indicate emotions, and asked participants to label things that they like and don’t like about their experience in the store, as well as the path they usually take through it. We hope to use this information about their current experiences with physical stores to inform our digital-hybrid grocery store solution which will concern the first aspect of our probe: routine vs. ideal food decisions.

For the aesthetic of our probes we were inspired by the simple, rustic look of picnics, so we used brown paper bags, twine, and simple type/imagery. The handmade look is meant to be casual and appealing, with just enough polish to be taken seriously.