Non-Visual Cooking: Exploring Practices and Challenges of Meal Preparation by People with Visual Impairments
This addresses the problem of achieving independence and nutrition for visually impaired individuals, but it is incremental as it builds on limited prior research.
The study tackled the problem of cooking challenges for people with visual impairments by analyzing YouTube videos and conducting interviews, identifying practices for 12 cooking activities and highlighting risks like task tracking and verification.
The reliance on vision for tasks related to cooking and eating healthy can present barriers to cooking for oneself and achieving proper nutrition. There has been little research exploring cooking practices and challenges faced by people with visual impairments. We present a content analysis of 122 YouTube videos to highlight the cooking practices of visually impaired people, and we describe detailed practices for 12 different cooking activities (e.g., cutting and chopping, measuring, testing food for doneness). Based on the cooking practices, we also conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 visually impaired people who have cooking experience and show existing challenges, concerns, and risks in cooking (e.g., tracking the status of tasks in progress, verifying whether things are peeled or cleaned thoroughly). We further discuss opportunities to support the current practices and improve the independence of people with visual impairments in cooking (e.g., zero-touch interactions for cooking). Overall, our findings provide guidance for future research exploring various assistive technologies to help people cook without relying on vision.