Break - Secondary Research
- Daniella Lim-Yip
- Sep 9, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: Sep 21, 2024
Description
I finally moved on to the Secondary Research exercise I dreaded. To start this off, I used my insights from the Health Belief Model (as mentioned in the previous blog) to target the behavioural aspect of this exercise (Etheridge, 2023). For the Secondary Research, I changed it from 'perceived' to 'actual', allowing me to form multiple research tasks for Actual Severity, Actual Susceptibility, and Actual Benefits.
One of the insights on Perceived Susceptibility was that most participants didn't think about food allergies because they haven't experienced it themselves or through other people, making them less vigilant and unintentionally ignorant towards this issue. This insight is relevant to my
capstone as it means that people working in food establishments who have this mindset are putting customers with allergies at risk. Therefore, my research task for this insight was to explore the prevalence of food allergies in NZ and how frequently allergic reactions occur in food establishments.
From the interviews and questionnaire, I learnt that culture significantly impacted people's perception of food allergies, which led me to conduct Secondary Research on the cultural aspect of this exercise. To investigate the importance of this and how it would inform my prototype, I decided to see the most popular/typical cuisines in NZ as this would indicate where there's higher traffic of customers. Furthermore, if certain restaurants are more popular/typical, there's a higher likelihood that the staff will encounter customers with food allergies. The top result was Thai cuisine, followed by Indian, Chinese, Italian, and Japanese (Williams, 2020). I also used Google Trends, indicating that Indian and Chinese were commonly searched (Google, 2024). From this, I concluded that ethnic cuisines, specifically Asian, dominate NZ's food culture.
I also found precedents of allergy management tools, one of which was developed by Ming Tsai, an American chef who created a 'Food Allergy Reference Book' that influenced legislation (Food Allergy Law) (Jaffee, 2017). He has become known for his allergy-friendly procedures within his restaurant and is a food allergy activist. He created a campaign where he pretended to sell poisonous food in a food truck called 'Khil Mi'. The purpose of this was to mimic what is experienced by customers with food allergies - they're served life-threatening food (BBDO North America, 2017).
Feelings
I wasn’t looking forward to this phase as expected, but it felt slightly more manageable due to the research prompts I created from the Health Belief Model (Etheridge, 2023).
Once I gathered statistics for the top cuisines in NZ, I felt more confident because it became evident that this was a sector I should consider in my prototype. I also found further information on how allergic reactions commonly occur in ethnic restaurants due to uncommon ingredients, traditional methods of cooking, lack of understanding towards food allergies, and language barriers.
Seeing Ming Tsai’s campaign was the perfect example of what I would want mine to be like because he found a way to make having food allergies relatable to the general public. Therefore I must try to do the same, and find ways to make food establishments think they have a higher susceptibility of serving customers with food allergies.
Through my research on current laws and regulations in NZ, I noticed that food health and safety has more strict protocols and consequences if they’re not followed to keep consumers safe. Yet, it makes me wonder why these don’t typically include food allergies, considering it’s a health and safety issue for those who have them.
In the UK, Owen’s Law was created in 2017 after Owen Carey died from anaphylactic shock due to dairy being present in his meal despite him alerting the restaurant staff. This law requires all food establishments to label the allergens in meals to reduce miscommunication (Moran, 2024), yet this isn’t a law in NZ. Unfortunately, it took a death to make a change, but even that isn’t enough for many countries.
The highlight of this research phase was when I stumbled across a relevant case study, “Investigating Motivators for Managing Customers with Food Allergies in Ethnic Restaurants”, which also used the Health Belief Model (Etheridge, 2023). This was reassuring for me because it didn’t feel like I had wasted my time using the model and that how I had used it was justified. This case study also evaluated which of the six factors was most likely to influence an employee to improve their food allergy management practices within ethnic restaurants - it was perceived susceptibility and self-efficacy; however, all factors affect each other to a certain degree (Choi, 2022). Additionally, it mentioned that certifications and food allergy training positively affect employee knowledge and handling practices. I felt like I could cry. I hit the jackpot with this case study, and it was just what I needed to validate my ideas for my prototype.
Evaluation
Some parts of this research task could have gone better since I'm struggling with academically writing things and thinking of insights. I'm writing what I see from the research at a surface level, like key findings and summarising it, but this doesn't exercise my critical thinking.
Additionally, the more I researched, the more gaps and issues I found within my topic. This made me automatically research further as I felt the need to address all these problems. However, finding these gaps means more opportunities to create solutions, which, although I might not be able to tackle during this capstone, inspired me on what could be done for future steps.
Researching precedents was helpful as it revealed to me the importance of tools. To make a change in food establishments, the employees need to be more aware and develop their learning, but they must also be provided with ways to apply their learning to retain this knowledge and their skills.
One of the challenges I faced was figuring out what to do with this research, specifically regarding how each aspect of the Health Belief Model (Etheridge, 2023) would inform my prototype. I struggled a lot with this and started to lose motivation, as I wasn't sure if I was on the right track anymore.
The Secondary Research tool from the HCD toolkit (IDEO.org, 2015) was a standard exercise. Separating it into three aspects - technological, behavioural, and cultural- was helpful, but it wasn't a unique tool. I think this tool is done naturally within any design process, so it could've given more specific examples of things to research with prompts or instructions on how to conduct the research effectively. I have yet to use a significant amount of tools, but I'm noticing that the ones I'm using are very standard to a design process and may not be using them to their full potential.
Analysis
I'm struggling to write and think critically since I'm not taking any business papers this semester. My business courses cultivated these skills, but I must continue to practise them so I don't lose them. In business, we were given writing paragraph structures to follow, one of which was called PEEL - point, evidence/example, explanation, and link (Gardner, 2023). Using this in my reports was always helpful as it made my writing coherent and fostered logical thinking. However, in design, it doesn't work as well with my content for some reason, maybe because the exegesis I need to write is more personal. Although I did relatively well in my research proposal, I think I'm in a completely different mindset right now as this capstone has been the only thing on my mind, so I've been more engaged in design thinking rather than critical thinking. Bell (2023) describes the purpose of critical thinking as making conclusions based on evidence and rationale, whereas design thinking focuses on creating and developing solutions through ideating. Instead of using critical thinking in this research exercise, I felt like I was trying to ideate and solve these identified problems immediately when, in reality, I should be addressing the information that I'm currently faced with to make sense of it - almost as if I was jumping to the ideation phase while still in the inspiration phase.
For the Secondary Research, I changed each factor from 'perceived' to 'actual' as I was seeking facts and information that were objective rather than subjective. It was essential to make this change as it will allow me to compare both sections. Hopefully, it will also serve as a baseline and allow me to see how my participants' perceptions have changed through user testing at the end of my project.
The type of research I did doesn't necessarily have to result in an actionable task; it's just there to help me better understand my topic and guide me in the right direction.
One reason I'm not using the HCD toolkit (IDEO.org, 2015) to its full potential is due to how behind I am in comparison to my timeline. Initially, I planned to use a lot of the tools, but I'm now using the bare minimum to get me through the process, which means I'm only using the essential tools. Additionally, I think that in other design courses I've taken, there's more of a focus on design phases in each methodology rather than the tools that can exist and be utilised within them. Now that I've been given a wide range of tools, I feel the need to use as many as possible to maximise my output, but I typically spend too long using each tool.
Conclusion
At this current stage, I plan to create food allergy training materials, which made me realise that I can use this information to create the content for the modules - so I’d like to think that future me is thanking current me for doing the extra work early for once, even though it was unintentional! I also realised that this research could be used towards the literature review in my exegesis, considering my project has significantly changed since my last research proposal.
If I stuck with my timeline, it would’ve been better, but knowing me, I was guaranteed to stray away from it anyway. Usually, people say that breaking up a task into smaller pieces makes it more manageable, which sometimes does help. Still, it tends to overwhelm me because it suddenly looks like I have a million things to do and will never finish them.
I’m very aware that I have bad time management skills, which I’m still yet to learn from - but you know what they say: the first step to improving is self-awareness!
One of the biggest reasons why I think I struggled to do research is because it’s the only time I’ve looked at and explored the topic of food allergies outside of personally experiencing it. Therefore, I feel the need to learn as much as I can because I know I probably won’t do this any other time outside of capstone.
Affording education is a massive privilege, and I’ve learned to value it and make the most of it. Besides getting a good grade for this, I actually want to make a valuable output that has meaning and that I’m proud of by the end. This also puts pressure on my performance because if it’s not up to my high standards, I’ll feel like I’ve let myself down on something important to me.
Action Plan
Considering my bad time management skills, I will use my Google Calendar again for this capstone. I tried to map out a timeline for this project on my Miro board, but I barely referred back to it because I wasn’t used to using it like that. However, I use Google Calendar for personal things, so if I put my capstone timeline there, hopefully, it’ll keep me accountable and help me stick to the tasks better. I’ll try to break my tasks into smaller tasks again and see how it goes.
To help with my writing, at least in my exegesis, I will use the PEEL structure, at least for my literature review, as this is more objective writing and doesn’t describe anything personal.
I also will try to balance my critical thinking and design thinking, specifically allocating sections for reflection and analysis in the ideation phase when I’m looking at precedents to help me with my prototypes.
Lastly, to progress faster in my design process, I need to learn to fail faster because I’ll gain insights earlier and improve faster. The longer I delay things, the more stressed I will feel.
References
BBDO North America. (2017). E.A.T and BBDO Raise Food Allergy Awareness in PSA with Celebrity Chef Ming Tsai. Little Black Book. https://lbbonline.com/news/eat-and-bbdo-raise-food-allergy-awareness-in-psa-with-celebrity-chef-ming-tsai
Bell, A. O. (2023). Critical Thinking Vs. Design Thinking. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/critical-thinking-vs-design-antonio-ortiz-bell/
Choi, J. (2022). Investigating Motivators for Managing Customers with Food Allergies in Ethnic Restaurants. Journal of Food Protection, 85(12), 1875-1882. https://doi.org/10.4315/JFP-22-175
Etheridge, J. C. (2023) The Health Belief Model. Science Direct.
Gardner, S. (2023). How to structure paragraphs using the PEEL method. Studiosity. https://www.studiosity.com/blog/how-to-structure-paragraphs-using-the-peel-method
Google. (2024). Cuisine. Google Trends. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=NZ&q=cuisine&hl=en-NZ
IDEO.org. (2015). The Field Guide to Human-Centred Design. Design Kit. https://www.designkit.org/resources/1.html
Jaffee, A. I. (2017). Ming Tsai's Food Allergy Reference System is Your Staff's New Best Friend. The Rail Media. https://www.therail.media/stories/2017/1/26/ming-tsais-food-allergy-reference-system-is-your-staffs-new-best-friend
Moran, J. (2024). What could Owen’s Law mean for the food industry?. New Food Magazine. https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/197336/what-could-owens-law-mean-for-the-food-industry/
Williams, C. (2020). Most Popular International Cuisines in New Zealand. Chef's Pencil. https://www.chefspencil.com/most-popular-international-cuisines-in-new-zealand/
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