Presentation for the EuroIA 2010 conference in Europe's culinary capital Paris by Peter Bogaards (with support of Ruud Ruissaard) of INFORMAAT Experience Design. Designers will find lots of inspiration in the field of gastronomy as a conceptual metaphor for user experience design. Besides prior art, eight similarities, analogies and parallels between the fields are identified. See also: FoodUX.org

1. GASTRONOMY
A source of inspiration for user experience design
Peter J. Bogaards
EuroIA 2010

2. DdUX.org
informationdesign.org

4. Jacco Nieuwland
Information architect
User Intelligence

5. Eric Reiss
CEO FatDUX

8. Disclaimer
• This talk contains my ideas, insights and
points-of-view and is born out of two
passions.
• Gastronomy is no synonym for user
experience (design), nor the other way.
• Present 8 similarities, parallels, or
analogies.
• It’s not comprehensive at all.

9. Defining the damned thing

10. “Gastronomy is the craft,
science, art, sociology, and
anthropology of food, cooking,
serving and eating.”
- Michael Ruhlman 2008

11. “User experience design is the
art of setting the stage for good
experiences to happen -
creating spaces to find the
delightful, useful, and good.”
- Helge Fredheim 2010

12. Conceptual metaphor

13. “A conceptual metaphor refers
to the understanding of one
idea, or conceptual domain, in
terms of another.”
- Wikipedia

16. Prior art

17. “... (also known as state-of-the-art) in
most systems of patent law,
constitutes all information that has
been made available to the public in
any form before a given date that
might be relevant to a patent's claims
of originality.”
- Wikipedia

19. Patañjali Venkatacharya
User experience architect
Oracle

21. Daniel Schwartz Jason Santos Jody Adams Ronald Baecker

25. 8 Parallels
Analogies
Similarities

26. #1 ~ The senses

32. • Sensorium: vision, audition, touch, smell,
and taste
• Perception, cognition, emotion, and action
• Design for the senses to allow experiences
emerge.

33. Gastronomy
Mainly smell, taste, and touch

34. User experience
Mainly vision and audition

35. #2 ~ Type of field

36. Gastronomy as a field
•Practice-led field, guild, chefs, and
schools
•Methods, techniques, skills, and tools
•Science and technology since 1970
(‘Modernist cuisine’)

37. UXD/IA as a field
“The field of UXD in general, and IA in
particular is a practice-led field in need of
scientific research and reflection.”
“(…) there is no larger coherent body of
validated, scientific knowledge to appeal
to or apply when designing in commercial
or other contexts.”
Jason Hobbs, et al.
Journal of Information Architecture
Issue 1 Volume 2

38. #3 ~ Homo sapiens

39. Omnivore
FOOD

40. Informavore
FEED

41. #4 ~ Visualization

43. Jordy Houtman 2010

44. Louis Rosenfeld 2001

45. Jordy Houtman 2010

46. The Elements of User Experience Jesse James Garrett
jjg@jjg.net
A basic duality: The Web was originally conceived as a hypertextual information space; 30 March 2000
but the development of increasingly sophisticated front- and back-end technologies has
fostered its use as a remote software interface. This dual nature has led to much confusion,
as user experience practitioners have attempted to adapt their terminology to cases beyond
the scope of its original application. The goal of this document is to define some of these
terms within their appropriate contexts, and to clarify the underlying relationships among
these various elements.
Web as software interface Concrete Completion Web as hypertext system
Visual Design: visual treatment of text,
Visual Design: graphic treatment of interface
elements (the "look" in "look-and-feel") Visual Design graphic page elements and navigational
components
Interface Design: as in traditional HCI: Navigation Design: design of interface
design of interface elements to facilitate elements to facilitate the user's movement
user interaction with functionality
Interface Design Navigation Design through the information architecture
Information Design: in the Tuftean sense:
designing the presentation of information Information Design Information Design: in the Tuftean sense:
designing the presentation of information
to facilitate understanding to facilitate understanding
Interaction Design: development of Interaction Information Information Architecture: structural design
time
application flows to facilitate user tasks,
defining how the user interacts with
Design Architecture of the information space to facilitate
intuitive access to content
site functionality
Functional Specifications: "feature set":
detailed descriptions of functionality the site
Functional Content Content Requirements: definition of
content elements required in the site
must include in order to meet user needs Specifications Requirements in order to meet user needs
User Needs: externally derived goals User Needs: externally derived goals
for the site; identified through user research,
ethno/techno/psychographics, etc. User Needs for the site; identified through user research,
ethno/techno/psychographics, etc.
Site Objectives: business, creative, or other
internally derived goals for the site Site Objectives Site Objectives: business, creative, or other
internally derived goals for the site
task-oriented Abstract Conception information-oriented
This picture is incomplete: The model outlined here does not account for secondary considerations (such as those arising during technical or content development)
that may influence decisions during user experience development. Also, this model does not describe a development process, nor does it define roles within a
user experience development team. Rather, it seeks to define the key considerations that go into the development of user experience on the Web today.
© 2000 Jesse James Garrett http://www.jjg.net/ia/

47. The elements of eating experience

48. Facets of the user experience
Peter Morville 2004

49. Facets of the eating experience
Peter Bogaards 2010

50. #5 ~ Mis en place

51. “The preparation and assembly of
ingredients, pans, utensils, and
plates or serving pieces needed for a
particular dish or service period.”
- The Culinary Institute of America

53. UX Design library
• Frameworks
• Design patterns
• Modular components
• Guidelines, grids, and templates
• Standards, reuse, consistency and efficiency

54. Courtesy of Nathan Curtis

55. #6 ~ Evaluation

56. Gastronomy: Taste
• Experience prototyping
• Expert opinion and user feedback
• To make food or cook

57. User experience: Test

58. #7 ~ Principles

59. “Washoku is a practice, it's experiential.”

60. Washoku: The five principles
• Five colors (‘go shiki’): red, yellow, green,
black, and white.
• Five tastes (‘go mi’): a harmonious balance of
flavors (salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy)
• Five ways (‘go ho’): prepare food by a variety
of methods..
• Five senses (‘go kan’): be mindful of taste,
sight, sound, smell, and touch
• Five outlooks (‘go kan mon’): rules concerned
with the partaking of food.

61. 5 principles for UX designers
• Understand the underlying problem
before attempting to solve it
• Don’t hurt anyone
• Make things simple and intuitive
• Acknowledge that the user is not like you
• Have empathy
- Whitney Hess

63. #8 ~ Inspiration

68. Wrapup
• Gastronomy as a field is a rich source
of inspiration.
• Just a few examples of parallels,
similarities, and analogies. There are
many more.
• More attention to the human
experience than to the ‘thing’ we
design.

69. FoodUX.org

71. “All slides will be online. If you can’t find
them, you’re in the wrong business.”
- Steven Pemberton, 2010

72. i!