Changing Salty Food Preferences with Visual and Textual Explanations in a Search Interface
This addresses health issues related to high salt consumption in the general population, but it is incremental as it builds on existing interface and technology approaches.
The study tackled the problem of reducing salt intake by examining whether visual and textual explanations in a search interface can change salty food preferences, and it demonstrated this is possible with an online user study involving 200 participants.
Salt is consumed at too high levels in the general population, causing high blood pressure and related health problems. In this paper, we present results of ongoing research that tries to reduce salt intake via technology and in particular from an interface perspective. In detail, this paper features results of a study that examines the extent to which visual and textual explanations in a search interface can change salty food preferences. An online user study with 200 participants demonstrates that this is possible in food search results by accompanying recipes with a visual taste map that includes salt-replacer herbs and spices in the calculation of salty taste.