Food Talks: visual and interaction principles for representing environmental and nutritional food information in augmented reality

This user-centered design research project aimed to investigate visual and interaction principles for augmented reality (AR) in the context of environmental and nutritional food labelling. Nutritional information on existing food labels is often misunderstood and environmental information is seldom depicted, despite consumer demand. The project explored the potential of AR in this context with a two-phase process. Phase 1 aimed to engage large audiences in public spaces using a stand-alone AR device showing environmental information only. This allowed design strategies to be tested. Phase 2 addressed personalised information, combining nutritional and environmental data with smartphone AR. Here we integrated design learnings from Phase 1 and then focused on assessing the benefits of AR. A between subjects study with 84 participants compared two-versions of the smartphone application; one version showed the information with AR and the other showed the same information with a static page. Results showed that participants using the AR version learned more about food products than those using the static version. In addition, the AR version matched the high scores of the static version with regards to usability (SUS score of 86) and aesthetics (VisAWI score of 5.9), despite technical limitations of AR. This work reveals that AR can be a credible medium in the food industry and provides visual and interaction design learnings to inform designers in the industry.