Unlocking the potential of nutrition labels: A look at the power of (digital) nudges

Abstract

Nutrition labels on food packages play an important role in influencing consumer behavior since their first emergence. However, past research showed that there are limitations to their effectiveness as some consumers do not benefit from them as much as others. A major reason to that is some consumers struggle to interpret the nutritional information listed on the labels, making it difficult to make healthier food choices. To overcome the limitations, digital nudges are being proposed as a solution, making User Experience (UX) an important field in nutrition labeling as the design of effective digital nudges pass through good usability. Digital nudges, personalized recommendation systems can be leveraged and, affective and cognitive UX design strategies can be employed to make it easier for consumers to understand the nutritional information and make healthier food choices. This paper presents a perspective on nutritional labels by proposing to repurpose them as digital nudges, with examples from the literature to support the idea.