This project aims to provide an improved diet and nutrition experience catered to the next billion users of the digital age that are most vulnerable to malnutrition.
This project follows a Design Thinking approach, emphasizing empathy and user-centered solutions. The process is structured into five key stages — Discover, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Validate. Each phase builds upon the last, ensuring the final solution is thoughtfully designed.
The prevalence of malnutrition remains a significant global concern currently, impacting individuals regardless of geographical location, socio-economic status, gender, overlapping households, communities, and countries. (Imran & Imran, 2020)
According to Global Nutrition Report (2018), anyone can experience malnutrition but the most vulnerable groups affected are children, adolescents, women, as well as people who are immunocompromised, or facing the challenges of poverty.
Development agencies have viewed the surge in mobile phone usage for the “Next Billion Users” as an opportunity to address poverty and enhance the quality of life in these regions. However studies and statistics on online browsing patterns reveal that the most visited sites are related to social networking, pornography, romance, and gaming. (Arora, 2019).
During my research, I wanted to explore existing literature on the general consensus surrounding mobile health applications — particularly their effectiveness in improving nutrition. I aimed to understand what interventions have been successful, and to gain insight into how both healthcare professionals and users perceive the current apps available on the market.
In a systematic review from Villasana et al. (2019), there are 52% applications that fall into the category of diet and nutrition. From the study, they had evaluated that the most relevant and essential features involved in these apps are based on caloric-intake and consumption from a diet diary and exercise diary.
Successful interventions and applications that provided improvement of diet and nutritional habits mentioned in literature reviews involved gamification elements (Suleiman-Martos et al., 2021) and the implementation of behavioral technology models (Berger & Jung, 2021).
Extensive literature review by (Suleiman-Martos et al., 2021), discussed the impact of gamification for improving nutritional habits, knowledge, and changes in body composition among children and adolescents. Through their research, it was concluded that providing nutritional information through gamification interventions had a positive influence on food selection in children and adolescents.
A number of studies on how healthcare professionals (HCPs) use and regard diet apps for dietary assessment and monitoring have already been conducted.Since HCPs are key actors of dietary monitoring and assessment it is important to figure out their expectations. I wanted to find out whether such apps are recommended or not by the HCPs, whether they find them useful and also gather opinions on what is missing, what is needed and what can be improved.
According to the comments in more detail, existing apps have the following disadvantages:
They focus on weight loss instead of assessing nutritional status and encouraging behavioural change.
They are inaccurate in terms of nutrient content.
They lack the analysis of micronutrient information.
They require too much interaction to add a single meal.
They do not involve the patients in their everyday use.
They provide limited access to information — so the patients usually misunderstand some nutrition facts or prescriptions.
They are designed for Western diets and many foods items are not adapted to eating patterns and needs of nonwestern countries.
I conducted user interviews to understand the preferences of users when using diet and nutrition applications.
Most users use diet and nutrition apps, with MyFitnessPal being the most popular. The most valuable features that users prefer on these applications are the weight chart and journal, calorie counter, exercise log, recipes, and food log.
Users that do not user diet and nutrition apps stated that these involve too much time commitment and that they could not stick to the diet plan. They had also mentioned that the apps are confusing to use.
Users prefer using diet and nutrition apps when they have features related to their weight progress and goals, when the app interface is user friendly and easy to use. They want reminders for meal times, variety in meal plans, and more information towards their health and fitness goals.
From the initial discovery phase, I have found a few key insights that helped inform and guide the design of the application.
Regardless of socio-economic background, most users access the internet for leisure and entertainment, rather than for information and opportunity.
Anyone can experience malnutrition but the most vulnerable groups affected are children, adolescents, women, as well as people who are immunocompromised, or facing the challenges of poverty.
Most health applications have high abandonment rates due to usability and usefulness.
Common and essential features in existing nutrition and diet apps are based on caloric-intake and consumption from a diet diary and exercise diary.
Gamification elements and behavorial technology models have shown positive improvement of diet and nutritional habits in children and adolescents.
Healthcare professionals have reviewed most diet and nutrition applications to have problems with nutrition accuracy, usability and user-friendliness, and time commitment.
Healthcare professional prefer to recommend nutrition and diet applications that are easy to use, free of charge, have validation, and support automatic food recording and nutrients estimation.
The most frequent barrier towards combating pediatric nutritional problems is lack of parent involvement. Guidance in parenting methods and behavioral management procedures should be prioritized for interventions.
Mothers’ interventional behaviours are affected by their opportunities, capabilities, and motivation. Mothers with the lowest participation belonged to the youngest age-group and low-income families.
“How might we empower new users of the digital age to leverage technology for better health and well-being—specifically through improved nutrition?”
The project aims to propose a diet and nutrition application catered to new users in emerging markets to understand and achieve healthy diets and improvement of lifestyles.
Identify successful interventions and methods for improvement of nutritional habits.
Prioritize usability of application despite lack of technical knowledge.
Lessen time -commitment needed for users of the application.
To address the problems that were identified from abandonment of diet and nutrition applications, more research was done on design features and frameworks in previous studies that have achieved positive results on positive behavior change and retention for its users. In the design of the application, these will serve as the framework for the design process of the application.
A study by Berger et al (2021), found that the most preferred gamification elements are goals, performance graphs, progress bars, rewards, and levels were the most preferred in a nutrition context. On average, five elements are perceived as optimal by most survey participants. To achieve effective results, these elements must be included in the app-based intervention.
Several investigators have suggested for using of models to inform the design of Behavioral Intervention Technologies (BITs) as a key strategy for nutritional behavior (Mohr et al., 2014).
I conducted a comparative analysis of the highest-rated diet and nutrition applications on the market to identify common features and industry standards. This analysis was guided by heuristics derived from user research insights, offering a clear overview of what current apps do well and where opportunities for improvement may lie.
I created an experience blueprint to map out the user journey within diet and nutrition apps. This helped me identify key touchpoints, pain points, and moments of opportunity — providing insight into how the user experience could be improved and enhanced in the proposed application.
To gain deeper insight into the user experience, I created a user flow to illustrate the step-by-step journey through the app.
I define the red routes to map out the application's core user flows, focusing on the most critical interactions that support the user's goals.
I mapped out the information architecture to serve as a structural blueprint, outlining the screens and organizing information to ensure a clear, intuitive navigation experience within the application.
I created paper sketches to explore initial ideas for the key screens, allowing me to quickly iterate and refine the design direction before moving into digital wireframes.
I translated the paper sketches into low-fidelity wireframes, focusing on evaluating and refining the layout of each screen. Throughout the process, I simplified the arrangement of elements to present information clearly and concisely while still maintaining the integrity of the app’s core user flows.
The target users were considered in creating the app’s name and branding. Combining the word Wizard to Diet has made it specific and easier to create elements around symbolism that is attached to wizards in fiction and fantasy. This sets a playful tone of voice for the app, which suits its intended functionality. The brand mark was intended to look like a wand, referential to wizards. This brand mark was also used in the primary logo wordmark.
The color palette was chosen with an ideal tone of voice in mind. The primary color used in the branding is purple and yellow, which also references wizards in popular culture. However it was also chosen because of the emotional psychology attached to each color. Purple represents introspection and depth and yellow with enthusiasm and extroversion. These complementary colors create the balance for the brand’s ideal contemplative and engaging visual identity. Gradient accents were also used in the progress and stat bars for the application to continue a playful and youthful vibe that will be more visually stimulating to the users. A sans serif font is used for the text, to keep it simple and legible for all users.
After the branding was established, the brand identity was applied onto to low-fidelity prototype to create the screens for the high-fidelity prototype. The screens were created as follows.
The homescreen is designed as a dashboard of the user’s daily nutrition statistics. Each card uses progress bars and icons to provide a visual overview of the user’s progress towards their daily goals. From this screen, the user is able to select each card to discover more information and find recommendations for fulfilling each goal.
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A core action of the app is the ability to log food intake and exercise. This feature will be used the most. The log screen allows users to log food, water, and exercise and easily switch dates for logging and review. Once logged, each card will display details of the activity and the calories consumed or burned. From this screen, users may choose which meal of the day to log, and be directed to the food item search and scan.
Another core action of the app would be the community tab. Here you can engage with your friends and users from the globe, participate in challenges to raise your position in the global rankings. This is designed to encourage the user to take initiative in their health together with the community.
On the explore tab, users are able to find more information towards better health. Here they may find recipes, meal plans, and other advice and posts written by experts and the community. They may be able to view in more detail their personal weekly nutritional insight and find more information how to keep these values on-track and optimal.
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As part of the study, feedback was received from users. They were asked to review the application for the positives and areas that they would’ve thought that needed improvement. The feedback can be used for further improvement of the application’s functionality in future revisions.
The user’s review of the application were summarized into the strengths and weaknesses. From this information, opportunities for improvement can be taken for future consideration.
The study follows the user design process to discover, define, ideate, prototype, and validate. Initially, the idea for the app was catered for diet and nutrition and after the initial literature review, it was uncovered that the target users for the application may be catered to children that are most vulnerable to malnutrition. It explores the posibility of designing for the next billion users.
A comprehensive understanding of user needs and behaviors was central to crafting an effective and user-centric solution. User research and literature review was done, and uncovering insights from the target users and their browsing preferences led the research to identify possible features that could cater to these preferences. In the research, successful interventions from previous studies had shown positive results from gamification elements. It was uncovered that time-commitment required for these applications resulted in abandonment of the applications, so in the design framework, a proposal for features using image scanning could provide an easier experience for users.
The use of persuasive system design was also inclued in the design framework, with the most important elements being dialogue support which includes positive reinforcement, reminders, suggestions, credibility such as trustworthiness and expertise from nutritionists, and social support from social networking components. This played a pivotal role in refining the application’s functionalities and enhancing user experience. It allowed for incorporation of innovative features aligned with user preferences.
In the ideation process, the core user flows, red routes, and information architecture for the application provided the outline for the essential screens to be designed, involving prototyping and user feedback.
While the project succeeded in introducing valuable features and intuitive design elements, there were inherent limitations within the project scope. For instance, the inclusion of more gamification elements, body measurement statistics, and nutritional courses though considered beneficial, was beyond the project’s timeframe. Recommendations for future studies would involve exploring more of gamification strategies and informative features to further engage users and sustain long-term adherence to healthy dietary practices.
The case study highlighted the paramount importance of user-centricity in designing applications within the diet and nutrition domain. As technology continues to intersect with health and lifestyle and more and more users come into the digital landscape, ongoing efforts in designing intuitive, engaging, and culturally sensitive applications will play a pivotal role in fostering healthier dietary habits and overall well-being among users.
This project allowed me to focus on crafting user-centered solutions, using research and insights to explore how design can positively impact people’s lives. Translating those insights into design was a rewarding challenge. I worked to develop a solution that integrates motivational elements and proven nutrition interventions, aiming to support healthier habits in a meaningful way.
While the project was constrained by a limited timeframe - which affected the depth of exploration and the scope of proposed features, it laid a strong foundation for future development. Moving forward, I see great potential in refining the application further by enhancing gamification features and aligning them more closely with the motivations of the target users. Collaborating with a team would also bring new perspectives and greater depth, ultimately strengthening the design and its impact.
You can view the prototype below, through the link, or by scanning the QR code on your mobile device.
You can view the prototype by
scanning the QR code on your mobile device.
You can view the prototype by clicking the link or scanning the QR code on your mobile device.
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