Exploring design opportunities to promote healthy eating at work

January 25, 2024

Sibo Pan defended her PhD thesis at the department of Industrial Design on January 25th.

Image: Sibo Pan

A crucial aspect of an individuals' vitality and health is their eating behavior. The increasing prevalence of health issues such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and type 2 diabetes, often linked to obesity, is impacting the working-age population. In recent years, several digital tools have been created to promote healthy eating, but their effectiveness depends on integrating them into daily routines. The tools do show promise, but there's a lack of attention to interaction designs specifically tailored for healthy eating in the work context. For her PhD research, Sibo Pan explored the concept of healthy eating at work and sought to answer the central research question: ‘How to design digital tools to promote healthy eating in the working context?’

Addressing diet-induced health problems is essential for society at large. In particular, it’s imperative that unhealthy eating behaviors in work environments are circumvented sooner rather than later.

To help with such issues, a few digital tools and interventions aimed at promoting healthy eating behaviors are now available. However, their effectiveness relies on their seamless integration into daily routines and other contextual factors.

While these tools show promise, there's a lack of attention to interaction designs specifically tailored for healthy eating at work. So, for her PhD research Sibo Pan set out to address one critical question: ‘How can digital tools be designed to promote healthy eating in the working context?’

Image: Sibo Pan

Research approach and outcomes

For her research, Pan employed an exploratory design research approach, organized into Understanding, Exploring, Envisioning, and Reflecting phases.

Understanding: The initial phase involved a scoping review and empirical field exploration to comprehend existing designs and eating-related technologies, as well as current eating patterns at work.

The review identifies the potential for personalized, interactive, and playful digital tools focusing on human-computer interaction principles. The contextual inquiry study explores factors influencing eating at work, leading to the proposal of EAT@WORK, an interactive application.

Exploring: In this phase, Pan’s research delves into self-monitoring tools, comparing dietary assessment methods and introducing the NutriColoring toolkit. The part of the study revealed user preferences for the ‘Food Record’ method and identified desired features for future designs. The NutriColoring toolkit, employing a Coloring approach, is intended to enhance users' motivation for reporting food intake at work.

Envisioning: The third part of Pan’s approach looked to the future, envisioning scenarios and technologies for dietary technology in the year 2040. A collaborative ideation approach involving scenario planning and co-ideation was used to generate creative design concepts. Design experiments showed a significantly higher level of creativity in concepts inspired by narratives.

Reflecting: The final part of Pan’s thesis provides answers to the central research questions, reflecting on the process, and offering implications and recommendations for future designers and researchers.

EAT@WORK

Pan’s work contributes to the understanding and exploration of healthy eating in the working context.

By proposing and evaluating tools like EAT@WORK and the NutriColoring toolkit, Pan offers insights into user preferences and desired features.Envisioning the future of dietary technology stimulates creativity among designers.

Pan concludes her thesis with reflections and recommendations, paving the way for future research and design in the domain of healthy eating at work.

Title of PhD thesis: Exploring Design Opportunities for Promoting Healthy Eating at Work. Supervisors: Steven Vos, Aarnout Brombacher, and Xipei Ren.