Do you have any left? : Three triggers to persuade into sustainable behaviour within e-grocery

Sammanfattning: The concern about the rising food waste has drawn the attention of policy makers around the world, from France banning supermarkets throwing away unused food, to a more global perspective, with the UN aiming to reduce food waste by 50% by 2025 (Hinckley, 2018; Valencia, 2016). As the concern about food waste increases - so does the concern about what role e-grocery will play in it. By reason of the decreasing sense of ownership of the product, it is likely that food waste will increase (Illyuk, 2018). It has been demonstrated that persuasive design is an efficient tool to influence users’ habits within e-grocery, but currently it is primarily used to influence purchases and subsequently waste more (Chu et al., 2014).  We believed that e-grocery showed potential to also be able to counteract the food waste with the help of persuasive design. This research therefore aimed to investigate if persuasive design could be used for more sustainable purposes; meaning to decrease food waste instead of inciting overconsumption. Using current e-grocery triggers from Chu et al. (2014), this research has repurposed them to pursue a more sustainable approach. The triggers (default personalisation, reminder, suggestion & expertise-credibility) performed within a design- oriented research. The aim was to use the prototype in affiliation with criteria, that would prove their effectiveness through critical perspectives of the literature.  A study was set up with 12 respondents, in which they were asked to navigate the prototype with tasks. After navigating the prototype, they were asked questions based of the criteria. Analysing and evaluating the empiric data with the criteria helped to conclude three triggers that could be useful within e-grocery to reduce food waste.