Playful taste interaction
Christiane Moser, Manfred Tscheligi · 2013
Human-food interaction is an emerging research area, dealing with problems people can have related to food, such as a lack of nutrition knowledge. Recently, more attention has been put on investigating pseudo-gustatory interfaces. As food is a central part of our life and brings people together, it inspired us to think about possible playful taste interactions. The recently developed LOLLio prototype enabled us to investigate how children experience the interaction with a gustatory interface. It provides a long lasting sweet taste through a lollipop, a taste-based output using citric acid and allows some degree of tangible input through moving around its handle equipped with accelerometers. Within a user study in a laboratory with 10 children, we investigated users' game experiences and the perceived taste while playing a gustatory game. The results revealed that the interaction with the LOLLio provided fun, mainly positive game experiences and raised curiosity. Additionally, the chosen taste-based output seemed to be appropriate for the interaction with a game, as the taste was rated to be delicious and never disgusting.