The perfect kitchen table

[studentdesignresearch]

I want to redesign the kitchen table, to help improve family interaction, whether it be shape, size, material or integrating an organizing system to declutter the table or something to promote more cooking...
I wanted to know what everyone does at the kitchen table, what meals they eat there, when they have guests over, when you are cooking/doing homework. What do you think would make the kitchen table better? Or the kitchen in general.
Any comments would be really useful to my research :)

[RuthChan]

Our table is not in the kitchen. It is in the living/dining room, next to the kitchen.
We eat 3 meals a day at it.
Usually only the DCs and I eat together, but at weekends, DH eats with us too.

Ours is a rectangular table which seats 6 people and can be expanded with an extra panel to seat 8-10.
I like it, but when I was a child, we had a round table which sat 4 and could be expanded into an oval to seat 8-10. I think the round table was excellent for us as a family. Everyone sat together equally rather than the children squabbling over who sits next to who or who sits at the end.

Ours gets used for work as well as eating, but I try to clear it before each meal, which prevents much clutter from building up on it.

[RiffRaffeta]

We have a very big kitchen table (over 2m long) that we had made out of some elm off the front of the house. Its gorrrgeous and has lots of history for us.

We eat every single snack and meal at it. Up one end when its just the DC, it fits 6 with masses of room, and we normally have 6 chairs at it, but can seat 10 in large chairs too.

I work from home at it each day, and the DC often do their homework on it, craft activities, colouring etc. They often sit at it whilst I'm making dinner and watch the prep.