Food allergies: when search UX becomes dangerous
How my food sensitivity led me to realize the risk of search suggestions.
For the past eight years of my life, I have had to deal with varying degrees of food sensitivities. It wasn’t until a year ago that I was diagnosed with celiac disease, an autoimmune disease where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine.
It was my first semester of graduate school when I began to experience ongoing severe symptoms associated with celiac disease: vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, exhaustion, and anemia. The lack of control over my body made it impossible for me to predict when I would need to miss a class, work from home, or avoid seeing friends and family. People began to perceive me as flighty or even as someone with social anxiety. I would receive compliments on my weight loss as if it was intentional. My doctor spent a fair amount of time doubting what I was experiencing and running me through varying tests.
These are some of the common experiences of those with chronic illnesses. But I was lucky, I think. After months of dealing with these symptoms, I was finally diagnosed with celiac disease. Unlike some other chronic illnesses, celiac can be managed by diet alone. I could magically make my symptoms disappear just by avoiding gluten. It didn’t require me to pay for additional medications or to receive expensive treatments. Compared to other conditions, I thought this diagnosis was going to be a breeze to navigate. In some ways, it is…in others, not so much.
Dietary restrictions
Why tell you this? How does my story fit into the enticing headline that likely brought you here?
I want you to understand where I am coming from when I say that a search experience could be dangerous for someone like me. Continued gluten consumption can cause intestinal damage and a myriad of other long-term conditions. So I must be careful with the food I buy and pay special attention to ingredients, but I’m not the only person with food sensitivities.
Food sensitivities include celiac disease, food allergies, general sensitivity, etc. These are very common, affecting upwards of three million people in the United States alone. Severe cases tend to occur less frequently but still include hundreds of thousands of people. Regardless of frequency, when it comes to extreme food sensitivity, it’s essential to be careful. There isn’t room for tiny mishaps because a single mistake can make the difference between life and death (example, anaphylaxis). As I mentioned, errors can also create other long-term illnesses and conditions (for example, early-onset osteoporosis).
It’s also important to be mindful of other dietary restrictions. In 2015, a Harris Poll National Survey found that eight million Americans, or 3.4%, ate a solely vegetarian diet and that one million, or 0.4%, ate a strictly vegan diet. Others may have religious dietary restrictions such as Kosher diets and Halal diets. Regardless of why someone has a dietary restriction, it’s essential to respect their needs and help make their eating experience informed and pleasant.
So how do our online experiences affect people with dietary restrictions?
I have noticed that we pay very little attention to dietary restrictions in online food ordering experiences. It’s very similar to how we treat dietary restrictions in-person. When we go out to eat, it tends to be up to the restaurant to convey if something is gluten-free, vegetarian, or vegan. Many restaurants don’t include ingredient lists with menus, and most of the time, we have to ask what ingredients are incorporated. I’ve had restaurant staff shrug at me when I asked if something had gluten in it with the answer of “I’m not sure,” mostly because they haven’t been trained enough on the subject. Training and resources tend to be minimal and largely dependant on the restaurant itself.
The best way to ensure your food complies with your dietary needs is to get it from a grocery store or prepare it yourself and become familiar with foods that you should commonly avoid. Even prepackaged meals from grocery stores usually include lists of ingredients and often highlight common allergens. However, due to COVID, many of us are avoiding in-person grocery stores and are opting to use socially distanced experiences such as Amazon Fresh.
Amazon Fresh
As someone who has always disliked going to the grocery store, I have been using grocery store pickup and delivery for years. In the COVID era, I am particularly glad to avoid going to the grocery store as many make it impossible to safely social distance with their structural designs. I use Amazon Fresh regularly, though it’s important to call out that I do not support how Amazon treats it’s warehouse and delivery employees. Regardless of how Amazon treats its employees, deliveries from Amazon Fresh spiked at the same time that COVID infection rates did. Many people still use this service (COVID isn’t over by any means) and likely will continue to do so in the coming years. It’s also an essential resource for people who have disabilities and rely on delivery services regularly.
The basic pattern of Amazon Fresh (and other food delivery options in Amazon) makes sense. You search for an item by type, brand name, etc. The results show you what you want, and you can simply add the item to your cart with a specified weight or quantity. Once you’re ready, you choose the delivery date and time range and make your order. Easy enough, right? Yes, but there are patterns in Amazon’s search functionality that I have to call attention to because I believe they could be risky for someone with a food allergy or intolerance.
The Amazon search engine
Amazon has a somewhat manipulative search experience in place. If you are to search for a product in any part of their site, you will see that product and see similar products. If I were to search for “cat mouse toys,” I would see what I would expect, a bunch of little plushie mouses for kitty playtime. However, in an Amazon search experience, I see similar results to what I wanted. In this example, I also am shown laser pointers and even automated laser pointer devices. This seems reasonably harmless when in the context of cat toys, and from Amazon’s perspective, it likely serves to boost sales. I know that this method has made me find things that I didn’t even know existed and go, “oh, I want that!” The automated laser pointer was precisely an instance of this model working on me.
However, there are situations where this logic is flawed. For example, there have been parts I have searched for on Amazon by their part number. Part numbers are essential for technical and mechanical supplies because you want to ensure that you have the exact materials. Let’s say you want a specific screw. It is a safer bet to search by that screw’s part name, such as “HSC0424PP,” rather than searching less exact terms such as “hardware, screw, machine, 4–40, 3/4 long, pan head, Phillips.” But even if I search by a part number on Amazon, I still am shown similar items, leading to confusion. In the past, I have accidentally purchased the wrong parts, or even the wrong phone case size, because of these types of search results.
So the search logic is flawed, but you’re probably thinking, “that’s just frustrating, not dangerous.” You’re probably right in most situations, but let’s return to the original subject of dietary restrictions. Again, when it comes to a severe food allergy, there is no room for mistakes. Some people can react even at the slightest amount of an ingredient. As my allergy doctor so kindly put it to me, “you must react when you even just look at a loaf of bread.” This search functionality scales from frustrating to dangerous in a matter of moments.
Let’s apply the same search logic to an experience for someone who has celiac disease purchasing an item from Amazon Fresh. If I search for “gluten-free pizza” and look through the results, I see many gluten-free pizza options, but I also a lot of non-gluten-free options sprinkled in. This isn’t as harmless as me just seeing a similar item and deciding to buy it. From this experience, I can add an item directly to my cart without looking at ingredients and very easily purchase something dangerous for me. Consumers may trust that Amazon is showing them accurate results and not look to be sure. This exact experience has caused me to eat gluten by accident more than once.
Now you may be thinking, “that’s on you, Anna. You should know better and make sure to check the ingredients before you buy something.” I’m not arguing that I should have been more careful, but is it so wrong of me to trust a trillion-dollar company to show me accurate results for my search query, especially when my health depends on it? When Amazon is capable of technology like Alexa, is it so wrong of me to assume that they would avoid showing me results that directly conflict with my search query?
After learning about this pattern, I now look at the ingredients listed any time I search for something new. Anyone using Amazon for food delivery that has a dietary restriction needs to do the same.
While this isn’t any different than what we have to do when we go to the store now, is it so unreasonable to trust that Amazon would show us accurate results and protect our health? I’d love to live in a world where technology made it easier for me to eat safely, but given how much we struggle to meet basic accessibility needs on the web, I don’t feel hopeful.
So is this search experience really dangerous? Maybe, for those who may not expect it. But in the case of danger, “maybe” is an answer that I’m not comfortable with. While this pattern is only meant to manipulate people into buying more, this is the inherent issue with manipulative patterns. It’s not a pattern anyone would inherently associate with possible harm, but there are edge cases, and edge cases do matter.
