Dinnery — April 2023

Context and intent

Dinnery was developed for the course Design of Persuasive Health Technology. Our team of six designed an interactive intervention for a specific household scenario.

We were assigned a scenario with a single parent, a child with ADHD, and a picky eating toddler. The goal was to design something that makes dinner time less stressful, while encouraging more diverse eating habits. We communicated the intervention through an explanatory video grounded in psychological theory.

Concept and outcome

We designed a playful tabletop dinner experience that combines food, movement, and game mechanics. The core idea was to channel attention and energy into a shared activity, instead of trying to “force” calm during a meal.

The dinner table becomes a game surface. Motion based input supports a simple memory game, while the meal itself is connected to progress: eating (especially less preferred food categories) earns points, which unlock new cards projected onto the table. This creates a loop where engagement and eating reinforce each other.

My role

I contributed to the concept and helped shape the game mechanics, using my earlier experience. I built the tabletop projection app, which gave the rest of the team much more flexibility to focus on theory and filming. I also acted in the video, the ADHD child :)

This project combined theory, prototyping, and storytelling in a way that was new for me, I am used to focus on design and concept, rather then so much theory.

Reflection and learning

This project helped me understand persuasive design as something subtle. The goal is not to “convince” people, but to shape an environment where the desired behavior feels easier and more rewarding. In this case, that meant designing dinner as an experience rather than a conflict moment.