Cultural Newcomers Dining Across Borders: Need-Based Design Envision of Mixed Media Integration in MR for Foreign Menu Understanding and Ordering

TL;DR

This paper explores designing a mixed media ordering assistant in MR to help cultural newcomers overcome language and cultural barriers in foreign restaurants, based on interviews and participatory design.

Contribution

It introduces a need-based, immersive mixed media interface concept for MR to improve foreign menu understanding and ordering for cultural newcomers.

Findings

Identified key challenges faced by CNs in foreign restaurant ordering.

Proposed a conceptual framework for a mixed media ordering assistant.

Designed a multi-dimensional model addressing key features, interaction, hierarchy, and presentation.

Abstract

Cultural newcomers (CNs), including new immigrants and international students, often encounter cognitive barriers and social anxiety, exacerbated by unfamiliar cultural terminology in daily interactions. This research examines these challenges in the context of ordering in foreign restaurants. Current translation tools have significant limitations in their information delivery with current media presentation methods. This research investigates the challenges and needs of CNs in ordering scenarios in a foreign restaurant through interview sessions (N = 13) and explored their expectation of mixed media integration (Image, Video, 3D Model) through a participatory design session that featured an immersive restaurant experience to support brainstorming. Based on qualitative analysis of participants' needs and expectations, the mixed media ordering assistant is conceptualized across 4 key dimensions: Key Features, User interaction, Media hierarchy, and Information presentation, with the objective of alleviating cultural barrier, linguistic barrier, cognitive load and improving the dining experience for CNs.