eatentive: thesis project
experience design, 2020
Every day, people are becoming more and more distracted during their meals. They often multi-task while eating, which decreases the quality of their experience with food. To counter these destructive eating habits, mindful eating, a meditation method, can be used to enhance focus during mealtimes. Mindfully eating means paying full attention to your food and how your body and mind responds to it, while also giving yourself and your food the time they deserve.
With Eatentive, a mindful eating training program, users can learn techniques and form habits that enrich their eating experience. The program consists of 7-days of themed training, and a booklet and props designed for continuing the mindful eating experience outside of the program. The first day is an introduction to mindful eating, days two to six are about how to use the five senses in mindful eating, and day seven is about pacing the eating speed. After that, 27 days of food journaling are included in the booklet. There, the user will be able to document one meal per day on their own, using the mindful eating techniques they’ve acquired during the first seven days of the program.
A set up for Day 3: Closer Listening. Shown is a Sound Plate on which ingredients of a dish are separated in order for participants to identify the sounds of each. The activity is accompanied by an audio made from the sounds of the dish being cooked that participants can listen to, helping to encourage the appetite.
On Day 4: Feel Your Food, participants are asked to put their hands in each box and feel the ingredients of a mystery dish, and make a guess about what each ingredient is. Later the dish, miang kham, is revealed to them, and they will get to enjoy the meal.
For Day 5: Eating is Breathing, participants smell each of the cones and take a guess at which ingredient they are smelling. After the ingredients are revealed, they reflect on their experiences and enjoy Tom Yum Goong, which is what the ingredients make up.
A set up of Day 6: Taste the Flavors. Participants will be able to identify the tastes of Pad Thai on each spoon, which are seasoned differently. For each spoon, they will use the stickers representing each taste and stick it on a tongue diagram to identify the taste and the location on their tongue.
