The EcoPanel - designing for reflection on greener grocery shopping practices

While the purchases of organic food are increasing rapidly, it accounts for only a small fraction of the total consumption, and there is still a big gap between consumer values awareness and the actual consumption. This article explores how detailed personal feedback could help the households to gain insight and reflect on their consumption, the text presents the design process of developing a prototype, the EcoPanel, in collaboration with a major player on the food retail market. Based on the access to detailed tracking of purchase data, the aim of the design was to provide relevant feedback to facilitate for reflection on the user's own food choices. The design prototype is intended to serve as an instrument for insight and reflection and to bring unconscious aspects of grocery shopping to conscious awareness. Following a research through design approach, this article describes the interdependent steps in designing the EcoPanel and design decisions playing a role for users' critical reflection of their food choice practices. It discusses the intention of each module in providing insight. Finally, we discuss how a social practice perspective may be useful for identifying fruitful future research into the design for more sustainable grocery shopping practices