Food Watch - UX Research and Mobile Design

Eating healthy is hard, but it doesn’t have to be. This is made even more difficult for people with dietary restrictions who often fear trying new foods because of their hyper consciousness of what they can and cannot eat. Food Watch encourages people with limited time and money to eat healthily by showing them how easy it actually is to do.

Healthy eating is not a new idea - the abundance of online resources and apps prove that. Our goal for this project was to take a Human Centered Design and Research approach to 1. understand why these options are not being used and 2. propose a proof of concept design that promotes eating healthy.

User Interviews

To better understand our problem space, we decided to jump straight into user interviews after our initial research phase. Our goal was to better understand the attitude individuals had towards food while understanding people’s cooking habits and food related expenses.

Research methods:

General interviews

We interviewed 6 college students of varied economic backgrounds. Additionally, we interviewed 1 local food bank.

Research Findings

Insight #1: “Food is not the issue” - Time is!

Miguel Jimenez, a Rainier Valley Food Bank representative, stated it best: “food is [often] not the issue.” Especially for low income individuals, their priorities are elsewhere in what they need help with and have the energy to work towards thus leaving little time for food

Aside from low income individuals, many interviewees also mentioned lack of time as a pain point which led leading to Insight #2 - food waste.

Insight #2: Reducing food waste

Some​ ​interviewees​ ​admitted​ ​to​ ​wasting​ ​up​ ​to​ ​half​ ​of​ ​their fresh​ ​groceries​ ​each​ ​week​ ​due​ ​to​ ​a​ ​lack​ ​of​ ​individual​ ​proportions​ ​available​ ​at​ ​stores​ ​and​ ​inadequate​ ​time within​ ​their​ ​schedule​ ​to​ ​plan​ ​the​ ​use​ ​of​ ​this​ ​over-proportioned​ ​food.

Insight #3: Cooking with dietary restrictions can be a challenge

Those​ ​with​ ​dietary​ ​restrictions​ ​cited​ ​finding​ ​cost​ ​effective,​ ​equally​ ​delicious​ ​alternatives​ ​and alternative​ ​recipes​ ​as​ ​their​ ​biggest​ ​challenge.​ ​Those with​ ​allergies​ ​stated​ ​that​ ​they​ ​tend​ ​to​ ​avoid​ ​cuisines​ ​or​ ​recipes​ ​which​ ​could​ ​potentially​ ​be​ ​problematic,​ ​but that​ ​they​ ​would​ ​have​ ​a​ ​desire​ ​to​ ​explore​ ​these​ ​cuisines​ ​if​ ​there​ ​were​ ​a​ ​resource​ ​to​ ​help​ ​them​ ​do​ ​so​ ​safely.

User Personas

From our interviews, we developed 2 main personas:

User Flows

We developed 2 usage flows that walked through how our personas would use our app. These stories not only helped us empathize with our users’ thoughts and emotions as they encountered difficulties in the food prepping journey but also helped guide our priorities during the wire framing stage.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

After sketching and user flow development, we had a clearer idea of the information that needed to be displayed and how. We began further refining and playing with different layouts.

Refining Our Ideas

Reflection

Like many course projects, time constraints at the very end left little time to create the final mock up, and thus, our visual design suffered. That said, I’m proud of the design thinking and research we were able to accomplish during this project. One of the big things I learned was not to get caught up in the small details of the app as a whole. We focused on breadth when instead, our time could have been better spent polishing a more specific user flow.

If I were to work on this project again, I would:

• Create a better defined branding focus through using more consistent visual design

• Conduct more usability tests to validate information architecture and design decisions