SPICE: Smart Projection Interface for Cooking Enhancement

Abstract: Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) for human--computer interaction (HCI) provide the user with physical representations of digital information with the aim to overcome the limitations of screen-based interfaces. Although many compelling demonstrations of TUIs exist in the literature, there is a lack of research on TUIs intended for daily two-handed tasks and processes, such as cooking. In response to this gap, we propose SPICE (Smart Projection Interface for Cooking Enhancement). SPICE investigates TUIs in a kitchen setting, aiming to transform the recipe following experience from simply text-based to tangibly interactive. SPICE uses a tracking system, an agent-based simulation software, and vision LLMs to create and interpret a kitchen environment where recipe information is projected directly onto the cooking surface. We conducted comparative usability and a validation studies of SPICE, with 30 participants. The results show that participants using SPICE completed the recipe with far less stops and in a substantially shorter time. Despite this, participants self-reported negligible change in feelings of difficulty, which is a direction for future research. Overall, the SPICE project demonstrates the potential of using TUIs to improve everyday activities, paving the way for future research in HCI and new computing interfaces.