Local Foodie: Experience design of a mobile augmented reality application for tourists to encourage local food consumption

Abstract

Food is an essential part of travel experience. Consumption of locally produced food while traveling has the two-fold benefit of providing insight into the local culture and increasing the sustainability of tourism. However, finding local food often requires motivation and effort, as information about food ingredients' origins and supply chains is not easy to discover. This paper presents the three-phase experience design process of a prototype of a mobile augmented reality (MAR) application "Local Foodie" designed to encourage tourists in Finland to consume local food. Adventure, autonomy, and competence were determined as experience goals for the application, and an interactive MAR prototype was created through iterative design. The results of a user evaluation (n=10) of the prototype suggest that the use of the application was intrinsically motivating, and the MAR elements contributed especially to the fulfillment of adventure and autonomy experience goals. Future work could leverage context-awareness and personalization to further enhance the experience of adventure.