The Sensory Interactive Table: Exploring the Social Space of Eating

Eating is in many ways a social activity. Yet, little is known about the social dimension of eating influencing individual eating habits. Nor do we know much about how to purposefully design for interactions in the social space of eating. This paper presents (1) the journey of exploring the social space of eating by designing an artifact, and (2) the actual artifact designed for the purpose of exploring the interaction dynamics of social eating. The result of this Research through Design journey is the Sensory Interactive Table: an interactive dining table based on explorations of the social space of eating, and a probe to explore the social space of eating further.