WeScream!: Toward understanding the design of playful social gustosonic experiences with ice cream

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Prior psychology studies have shown that eating ice cream increases happiness, while human–computer interaction work has shown that interactive technology can enrich the eating experience. We explore the opportunity to combine these two through WeScream!, a playful social gustosonic system we designed—social gustosonic referring to the link between the acts of eating and listening as part of a social multisensory experience. WeScream! consists of two interdependent ice-cream cones that allow users to interact with musical sounds generated through the act of eating ice cream together. We report on an in-the-wild study that highlights how our system facilitated a “hard fun” experience through eating together, increased participants’ awareness of relatedness, and drew shared attention to the ice cream’s taste via increased face-to-face interaction. Drawing on these study insights, we also present three design tactics to guide designers in designing future social gustosonic experiences. Ultimately, we aim to contribute to a playful future of social eating experiences, supporting people in enjoying eating together.