Cooking with Conversation: Enhancing User Engagement and Learning with a Knowledge-Enhancing Assistant

We present two empirical studies to investigate users’ expectations and behaviours when using digital assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home, in a kitchen context: First, a survey (N = 200) queries participants on their expectations for the kinds of information that such systems should be able to provide. While consensus exists on expecting information about cooking steps and processes, younger participants who enjoy cooking express a higher likelihood of expecting details on food history or the science of cooking. In a follow-up Wizard-of-Oz study (N = 48), users were guided through the steps of a recipe either by an active wizard that alerted participants to information it could provide or a passive wizard who only answered questions that were provided by the user. The active policy led to almost double the number of conversational utterances and 1.5 times more knowledge-related user questions compared to the passive policy. Also, it resulted in 1.7 times more knowledge communicated than the passive policy. We discuss the findings in the context of related work and reveal implications for the design and use of such assistants for cooking and other purposes such as DIY and craft tasks, as well as the lessons we learned for evaluating such systems.