Sociable Kitchen: Interactive Recipe System in Kitchen Island

Kitchen as a space for social interaction and communication has been neglected in current HCI design. Most researches on kitchen mainly focus on cooking activities, so to correct human’s frailties become main development in HCI research. Here instead of creating some artifact to improve working activities in the kitchen, we direct our study to design a system that aims to increase social interactions and communications among people. A tangible interactive recipe system embedded in kitchen island was introduced and evaluated. The results indicate that visual representation of dishes could facilitate people’s share of experiences and positive responses toward each other. A record of people’s favorite foods could also make food preparation easier and understand others’ preferences. Moreover, people enjoyed the intuitive way of the system’s interaction. Nevertheless, although people made some flavor changes in their final decision, people commented on lacking of personal creativity in current system. Further implications on sociable design are discussed in this study.