How to include the sociocultural context in food design: Insights, tools and strategies

Designers hope that their innovations will be adopted by the people they are designed for. How well their designs align with consumers’ cultural contexts is a key determinant of whether they are accepted or rejected. This is especially important for food solutions, as eating habits are deeply rooted in local cultures. However, academic disciplines from the humanities and social sciences that study food culture not always provide the knowledge, methods and tools that food designers need. Whereas these disciplines mainly investigate the past and present, designers look to the future to create new possibilities. In addition, designers often look for concrete, physical touchpoints they can use, whereas the other disciplines may look for sources of underlying meaning and, thereby, may generate conclusions that remain rather generic or abstract. In this article we discuss how culture and cultural context can be understood and utilized by designers. We describe models and tools designers can use to gain sociocultural insights, and we describe different strategies designers can employ to build on such knowledge in their design process. We conclude with suggestions to close the gaps between designers, design researchers and the other disciplines that study food culture.