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UI / UX

Product

Fresh Filter

Personal Nutrition Assistant

SEP. 2019

A personal nutrition assistant that helps you select food with quality and monitor your diet. Fast.

Project Brief

An application design that eliminates the barriers towards healthy and sustainable diets. It serves as a dietitian analyzing information relating to diet and health that guides the users in the shopping, cooking, and preservation processes.

As different users adopt different behavioral points, instead of crafting persona with a linear using processes, the application serves as a reference during discrete decision making moments in different scenarios, such as at home and groceries.

It links these processes for each users and lifts the burden of precisely calculating nutritional intake and budget, while eliminating unnecessary food waste.

Grocery shopping with quality and speed is made possible by the implementation of a filter feature that recognizes the food or scans the bar code, revealing layers of processing (carbon footprint) and alerting harmful ingredients.

To achieve effective changes towards a healthy diet, the static dietary guideline is turned into portions for each specific food with units that are easy to apply, calculating macro and micro nutrients components in the food directly.

Ideas maindisplay Test Scanner Process Overview
Idea / prototype / testing
Users do not always know the best options for them. It is important to discern the needs found in the user research selectively. Convenience, precision, less waste, optimization, and evidence-based were the starting points of mapping out the different processes of use. The final concept ensures a healthy diet basis while making the process convenient. The interactive prototype was built to show the ideas and using process.

To validate the idea, a study was conducted with a focus on the effect of planning with scientific nutritional guideline on understanding the healthy diet and shopping. The preparation also saved them from purchasing unnecessary food during grocery shopping. It can be inferred how the application as a two-way data stream can improve the traditional one-way RDI guideline. Participants that previously had planning and healthy eating habits reported are accustomed to the process, while others recognized the benefits of the regime and the effort needed to adopt the planning habit. The fact that participants indicate their willingness to continue practicing meal plans and healthy choices once the healthy diets are provided and if the process can be less complicated may show that the existence of better options can assist the users to change their unhealthy behaviors. The process analysis also indicated that the food filter technology should scan the food or barcode instead of receipts during grocery shopping, as the point of intervention, informed guidance, or filtering out unhealthy and unnecessary food, is before the purchase. The study further proves the fact that effective design should point out the healthy choices for the users rather than passively reflecting all of the responses found in user research without considering the consequences.
Critical decision making points
Some people may go to the grocery several times a week, while others only go for once. Behavioral points between different users may have overlaps, but can not be resolved into one single version of using process. Instead of crafting persona with a fixed using processes, the application serves as a reference during the discrete decision making moments in different scenarios, such as at home and groceries. Through each step, users can utilize the analysis to make informed decisions. By keep refining and stick to their plans, users can make improvements in their health.

Final concept

Quality and Speed

The nutritional assistant helps you make better and faster decisions in grocery shopping by breaking down ingredients from raw food to food additives, revealing layers of processing. The scanner improves the speed of food data input and provides food suggestions immediately. It records your favorite items, memorizing the important factors to consider so that you get prepared before walking into the store.
Effective Optimization

Users can optimize their diet iteratively and reduce wasted time, money, or food. It links the process of selecting the food, assisting the grocery shopping and calculating the daily intake, showing the most realistic and achievable options. It not only provides individuals the recommended dietary intake in an applicable form, but also nutritional advice during the critical decision-making process, the same procedure of seeking dietary services. Besides, it provides a learning opportunity that brings facts and research into daily life.
Achievable Precision

The specification of a single type of food in different units of weight instead of volume displays precise portions needed that are easy to apply in real life. It categories the food by the main source of macro-nutrient and the additional source of micro-nutrients to avoid the ambiguity. Users can choose the units of food portions they are most familiar with.


Shortened Learning Curve: Mini-tutorials / Training periods

Reference:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Chronic Disease Overview. August 26, 2015. Available at
http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/overview/. Accessed November 3, 2015.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015 - 2020. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. URL:
https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/table-of-contents/. Accessed December 9, 2019.

USDA Food Patterns. 2015
URL: https://www.fns.usda.gov/usda-food-patterns. Accessed November 25, 2019.