Cooking Stories: Connecting Remote Families Through the Sharing of Cooking Experiences

Abstract

Families can facilitate beneficial discussions on healthy eating, and in so doing provide important support for each other's health habits. However, distance, e.g., an adult child moving away, makes this interchange more challenging. In this paper, we introduce Cooking Stories, a research tool designed to investigate how the sharing of cooking experiences between remote families can be supported by HCI researchers. We conducted an IRB approved interview study with five participants between the ages of 20-67. Preliminary findings indicated that Cooking Stories addressed sharing barriers that study participants had experienced in previous systems. Based upon our participants’ engagement with the Cooking Stories prototype, we identified three themes: focusing on cooking experiences, incorporating cooking processes, and emphasizing familial community. We discuss the potential for these themes to be expounded upon by future work, in order to better support the sharing of full cooking experiences between distanced family members.