The Problem: Preserving Food Identities

Migration has surged in recent years. However, uprooted communities often struggle to maintain their cultural identities, particularly around food. Traditional ingredients may be unavailable, familiar recipes require adaptation, and the act of sharing meals takes on new meaning.

The solution

Kipu isn’t just a recipe app; it’s a platform designed by and for migrants to share knowledge, customs, and the emotional connections they have with food. It acts as both a cultural archive and a living record. Migrants can use Kipu to document their evolving food traditions, capturing the unique blend of their heritage with their new home in Malmö. This allows them to preserve the past and celebrate the present, showcasing how their food habits, celebrations, and the significance they hold are constantly adapting

The Design Process

To maintain a human-centered approach, I opted for participatory design, involving participants as both decision-makers and end users. This method was supplemented with a design thinking process to ensure feasibility within time and resource constraints.

Key Design Experiments

Empathize Phase: Cultural Probe

Eight people were invited to participate in a personal digital probe for three days, answering questions and reflecting on their favorite dishes from home, their evolution, and their meaning.

Insights

– Enduring Gender Roles: Traditional gender roles persist within migrant communities, even after resettling in new countries.

– Food as Cultural Hub: Food goes beyond sustenance; it’s linked to music, celebrations, memories, and shared experiences.

– Adaptation as Transformation: Migrants view cultural adaptation as a process of “unlearning and re-learning,” allowing them to integrate new influences and create evolving traditions.

– Food as a Bridge: Food serves as a powerful tool for sharing identity, memories, and cultural heritage, fostering a sense of community. As one of the participants mentioned, it is considered “social glue”.

Empathize Phase: Participative observation

By attending a variety of gatherings, both intimate and large-scale, I observed distinct approaches to food preparation and presentation. Regardless of the context, food consistently served as a catalyst for conversation and connection.

Insights

Challenges Faced by Participants:

Finding Ingredient Substitutes: Participants struggle to find suitable alternatives for key ingredients in their traditional recipes. While social media offers some solutions, navigating open groups to find reliable information can be time-consuming and difficult.

Preserving Culinary Knowledge: Participants rely on memory to recreate recipes they’ve learned over time. However, they acknowledge the risk of forgetting steps if they don’t record them. This highlights the importance of documenting these traditions.

Gender and Culinary Knowledge Access: The research suggests a link between gender and access to culinary knowledge in these communities. Oral traditions, prevalent in Colombia where traditional gender roles persist, seem to limit men’s exposure to cooking knowledge. Interestingly, some men stated they only learned to cook after migrating, relying on Colombian cookbooks found in Sweden.

Define: Conceptual maps and user journeys

To gain a holistic understanding of the research findings, we created conceptual maps and user journeys. These visualizations helped us identify patterns in participant behavior and thinking, allowing us to explore different levels of complexity within the data.

Ideation

Following the empathize and define stages, the divergent stage focuses on brainstorming solutions to the identified problem. This stage is divided into two parts:

– Part 1: Workshop for Refining Needs. Participants revisit previously identified needs, categorize them for better understanding, and further define their structure.

– Part 2: Idea Generation Workshop. Participants prioritize their needs and use core elements to brainstorm and develop ideas for an app that helps them preserve their culinary identities.

Prototyping and testing

After making some paper and lo-fi prototypes, a wire-frame digital prototype was made to start the testing sessions.

Positives:

– Participants appreciated the clear organization of the questions, with the revised format receiving even better feedback.

– Recipe sharing fostered personal connections; participants shared anecdotes highlighting the sentimental value of the recipes. Interestingly, they preferred using approximate measurements like cups and spoons, suggesting a focus on familiarity over precision.

– The option to incorporate music during food sharing was well-received, aligning with participants’ emphasis on the regional connection between food and music.

Areas for Improvement:

– Some participants mentioned getting lost during recipe sharing, suggesting the instructions for that section could be clearer.

Learnings

A key aspect of this project is continuous improvement. While we faced challenges in planning and executing design experiments, this experience allowed us to reflect and refine our methods and workflow for future endeavors.

Future Enhancements:

– Collaborative Recipe Creation: Explore the possibility of allowing groups to co-create recipes within the app.

– Food Event Planning: Investigate ways to integrate food event planning features within the city, promoting local culinary experiences.

– Multicultural Expansion: Test the app’s usability with other communities and cultures to broaden its reach.

– App Integration: Consider potential integrations with relevant apps like Google Maps (finding ingredients), Google Shopping (purchasing ingredients), and Spotify (setting the mood with music).

Process Refinement:

– Defining Stage Techniques: Explore alternative methods for the “defining” stage. While “How Might We” questions were challenging due to complex and diverse answers, different techniques might be valuable before ideation.

– Generative Research Focus: To avoid confusion inherent in generative research, which combines research and ideation, consider narrowing down activity goals and focusing on questions directly relevant to project discussions.

Thanks!