This article presents a Finnish social design study that was targeted at future Generation Z consumers. The main objective was to gain understanding of the target group’s attitudes, routines and skills relating to food consumption, diets and food waste within their households. The sustainability framework studied the Generation Z experience, obstacles and opportunities relating to behavior patterns, in addition with current habits—with respect to planning, shopping, cooking, eating and storing—and future motivations. The aim of the social design investigations was to provide contributions to the design outcome: a behavior change application that steered young consumers’ behavior patterns towards a more sustainable direction. The design framework was applied in two case studies that focused on 17–26-year-old consumers in Finland. The main method was qualitative online focus group discussions. Based on the results, the most important behavior change opportunities related to social aspects, the role of company sponsoring, localization and context-awareness potential in young consumers’ close environment and the need to engage wider sustainability aspects—such as carbon footprint, comparison of diets and financial savings—to the behavior change framework. Based on the results, the participants took the climate change challenge associated with food waste and biased diets very seriously.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a healthy snacking and on-the-go eating concept, “Healthy Snack Machine” (HSM) that produces freshly made food and enables customization of the product at site of purchase and consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applied qualitative and quantitative consumer research methods and used iterative co-creation approach, meaning that the HSM concept was developed by consumer input during different phases. Specifically, the research included three qualitative methods, web platform discussion (n=109), a HSM mock-up study (n=30) and testing a prototype of the HSM user interface (n=50), as well as a quantitative study (n=215).
Findings
Generally, the consumers evaluated the HMS concept positively. The results indicated that the time of the day, personal goals and preferences affected food choice and product customization in HSM. Consumers preferred HSM products that were healthy, satiating and suitable for on-the-go eating. They also felt that HSM would save time, and that the possibility to customize the food gives them additional value. The results also pointed out the importance of privacy and security issues in the HSM concept.
Practical implications
The results indicated that consumers are in favor of a new delivery concept that can help them to consume healthy food and enable customization of the product. This encourages to proof the findings in consumer tests with a real food-producing prototype machine.
Originality/value
The work gives original insight on consumer preferences for healthy snacking and snack customization enabled by digital technologies and consecutive co-creation methodologies.
Printed and digital learning materials are usually developed separately. Therefore, little notice has been given to the possibilities of combining the two. This study introduces a new concept that combines printed and digital materials. A user-centric approach was chosen to develop a “hybrid book”, a combination of a traditional schoolbook and a mobile phone. Learning materials were combined into one entity by enabling access to the digital material through images in the book. The user groups of interest were 11- and 12-year-old pupils, their teachers, and parents. The concept was tested with materials for English as a foreign language (EFL). After a human-centred design process, the final application was given to one class for actual use and evaluation for a period of three weeks. Many potential benefits of using mobile phones for learning purposes were recognized, as they facilitated utilization of the digital content both inside and outside the classroom.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.