Towards Digital Immersive Commensality - Insights and Strategies for Shaping Virtual Social Dining

This thesis investigates the concept of Digital Immersive Commensality (DICom) as a transformative approach to enhancing shared dining experiences in virtual environments. In an era of increasing social isolation, driven by demanding lifestyles and the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional practice of commensality - sharing meals with others - faces new challenges. Through the lens of Human-Food Interaction (HFI) and immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), this research explores how digital platforms can not only replicate but also enrich the sensory, social, and cultural dimensions of dining together.

Adopting a human-centred approach, this thesis explores the building blocks of meaningful DICom experiences through a series of three studies. The first study examines social engagement in remote dining through video-mediated communication enhanced by AR filters. This study identifies six design potentials that demonstrate how storytelling, sensory engagement, and breaking social norms can enhance social connections and contribute to creating more immersive digital commensality experiences. The second study shifts focus to the metaverse, employing co-design workshops to uncover what people value in their food-related experiences. This process identifies 18 foundational elements, which are refined into five design directions and illustrated through a speculative catalogue of future eating scenarios. Evaluation of the catalogue with experts and non-experts leads to the formulation of five key dimensions that define the DICom framework. The third study introduces a Wizard-ofOz VR prototype to explore the feasibility and transformative potential of these dimensions. This study uncovers six key opportunity spaces, showcasing how DICom systems can foster social bonding, sensory reconnection, and cultural authenticity.

Through this iterative exploration, the thesis makes contributions to the field of HFI by proposing a framework for DICom, identifying design strategies, and offering actionable insights into creating meaningful digital dining systems. It provides a foundation for designing DICom experiences that not only enhance social connection and sensory engagement but also support inclusivity, well-being, and cultural exploration.