Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy efficiency have become increasingly important priorities in households. In this study, we targeted cooking activities and used data-enabled design as the framework to explore how to effectively communicate energy consumption data to users during the cooking process to promote sustainable cooking behaviors.
The project was developed in a data-enabled design process that includes two steps: the contextual step and the informed step. In the contextual step, we started with quantitative data research to learn people’s attitudes toward cooking in a general view. After that, a data probe was used to collect detailed data in the user’s home during cooking to generate further insights.
Based on the outcome, we designed Coolapper, a sustainable cooking behavior recommendation system with a gamified reward system and real-time data visualization. By deploying Coolapper into two users’ homes during the informed step, insightful feedback was collected while constructive design suggestions were concluded for future design and research.
