Design Report: Habit Tracking App — B-Health!
A week ago I was tasked to propose a new mobile app designed to support forming a habit and to improve people’s day-to-day lives. In this post, I will break down the process and the design phases.
From the beginning, I was interested in doing it about healthy habits, but I had to narrow down the research.
Context
On the official website of the WHO (World Health Organization) we find the following information regarding daily fruit and vegetable consumption:
The WHO report recommends 400g edible fruit and vegetables per day as a population-wide intake goal for the prevention of NCDs, as well as for the prevention and alleviation of several micronutrient deficiencies. This translates to roughly 5 portions per day.
At this moment is when I actually found the opportunity for an app to improve people’s day-to-day lives.
The challenge
A digital experience that includes all the features to help and make it easier for people to eat fruit and vegetables.
Research Methods
I started the research looking for material and information about healthy habits, and specifically about the importance of the daily intake of fruit and vegetables.
Once I understood who I am designing for, I interviewed 7 people and got 50 responses from a survey (which was not very helpful, as by mistake I focused it only on fruit intake), my audience is wide as everyone has to take fruit and vegetables every day, so the ages ranged from 18 to 63, and all of them had different profiles.
Summary of what interviewees say…
How are you including your health in your daily routine? Are you eating healthily?
‘’ I go to the gym, I drink water, I sleep well, I also dedicate time to myself but I perfectly know I could eat healthier’’
‘’I do exercise and I eat healthily, but I don’t eat fruit. I don’t remember it. Also, I don't know what to do to improve this’’
‘’I don’t do exercise, but the best I do for my health every day is eating a lot of vegetables, in every meal, and also fruit, but not more than 3 pieces per day…’’
‘’I feel bad. I don’t do enough for my health. I live in a University Residence and my healthy routine is zero. I am young and I don’t feel like think of this, but I should do it’’
‘’I walk more than 5km every day, and I try my best to eat fruit and some vegetables every day but is hard… I have to cook for my family and it is difficult to find time and meals that please everyone.’’
‘’I workout at home, I drink more than 2L of water and I love to prepare cool meals with vegetables, I find it is easier to eat vegetables if you don’t notice them, I should look for more recipes’’
‘’I do nothing… but I am old already and I feel good. I don’t enjoy eating vegetables, but I do. What I don’t eat is fruit, I don’t remember it.’’
Interviews Conclusions
What I got from the interviews is that everyone is aware of how important is to eat healthily every day.
- Even they are aware, most of them (5 of 7) are not eating in the recommended amounts
- Even they have enough intake, some of them (2 of 7) would like to eat more in their daily lives.
However, the big issue is that they don’t have time or don’t feel like thinking about new ways to include more vegetable and fruit in their daily intake.
DEFINE THE PROBLEM
The problem
People are not eating enough fruit and vegetables in their daily lives
The solution
1. Offer the opportunity to have an app that reminds the importance of healthy daily eating
2. To motivate the use of the app: include a feature with creative and easy-to-make recipes
The goal: not just a daily reminder and a tracker, yet the perfect recipe book; for people that don’t know how to improve their daily fruit and vegetable intake, for those that don’t have time to think of new healthy and easy-to-make meals, or just for those that need a little push to get cooking healthy.
Ideation
After brainstorming possible solutions I was ready to sketch some paper prototype ideas:
After the paper I was ready to move to digital Lo-fi wireframes:
Usability testing
Then, I decided it was time for usability testing, I selected a number of users to try the interactive prototype with a specific flow.
In this screenshots of the app prototype you can see just a few, yet most of the important changes that were made after two rounds of usability tests.
PERSONA
Is in this specific moment when I like to introduce The Persona, with the results from the interviews and the results from the usability testing I’ve created a user persona with a specific history.
With this background, it is your time to test the final interactive prototype.
Design decisions connected to research findings
This is how the design decisions are connected to my research findings. Which functions of the app help each user’s problem:
For those that don’t have enough intake:
- a reminder, being able to set how many times and at what times you want the app to alert you to eat healthily
- the option to track how many pieces of fruit or vegetable dishes you’ve eaten
For those that have enough intake but would like more:
- a reminder, being able to set how many times and at what times you want the app to alert you to eat healthily
For those that don’t know how/don’t have time to think/don’t feel like thinking new ways to introduce more vegetables and fruit:
- the ability to enter what ingredients you have available at home so you know what recipes to make with them
- a section of easy and creative recipes that don’t require a lot of preparation time
(Of course, all functions help every type of user and can be used to every necessity)
Conclusions
Based on the research: interviews, survey and usability test I can conclude that people are interested in improving their fruit & vegetable intake. Above all, they are looking for an app to remind them not to forget to eat healthily.
What’s next?
- Determine and work on the development of the calendar function, so that users can see their past intake.
- Improve the option to edit and save recipes so that each user has their own recipe book.
- Improve the interface, especially the visual elements.
- Perform further usability testing.
Personal Conclusions
Working alone on this project has been a big challenge, you have to make good use of your time, know when to stop and move on to the next thing. Also, finishing this design report has not been easy… I have a lot to improve and luckily I’m in the right place to do it.
