The effect of cooking recipe storage on their retrieval

Purpose: This study aimed to test the effect of the storage of home cooking recipes on their retrieval efficiency (i.e. percentage of mistaken and failed retrievals and retrieval times). Design/methodology/approach: We recruited 35 participants and asked each to retrieve five recipes they occasionally use for cooking. Findings: We found a positive correlation between the number of locations that participants used to store their recipes and the percentage of mistaken and failed retrievals, r(35) = 0.34, p = 0.04. The effort put into actively storing recipes (e.g. using handwritten notes, mobile notes and web bookmarks) paid off in their retrieval efficiency: Only 3% of the retrievals of actively stored recipes were mistaken or failed compared to 15% for the inactively stored recipes, and retrievals of actively stored recipes were 36% faster. Interestingly, our participants intuitively sensed this and actively stored 52% of their target recipes. Research limitations/implications: Our results may have implications for systems designed to automatically arrange personal information. These systems free the users from organizing information, but our results indicate that the very activity of organizing the information improves retrieval. Practical implications: Our results suggest that people should actively store their home cooking recipes and limit the number of their storage locations to improve their retrieval. Originality/value: This is the first paper on home-cooking recipe storage and retrieval.