Duration | 2 weeks Role | Research & UX/UI Team of 2
Design Challenge | Build a mobile app with an emphasis on health & wellness
Problem
Between the availability of healthcare providers and the ease of internet access, it may seem the modern day parents should have no trouble ensuring their children are consuming all the proper nutrients they need. Regardless the amount of research, at the end of the day, parents still have trouble making sure their young ones are willing to eat healthy foods for a balanced diet, including those oh-so-gross vegetables.
Solution
The Wholesome app encourages and rewards children to be involved in their meal planning so that they are actively making their own decisions The daily dashboard feature allows parents to ensure their children are getting their recommended nutrient intake at the proper amounts, and gives children a fun and rewarding experience at the same time.
Target Users
Parents of children between the ages of 4-14 years old
We value the opinion of children on our app so it's important for the child to understand the context of the app. Older teens are likelier to have full control of their own meals so we narrowed the target users to parents who have full control and responsibilities over all of the child's meals.
DOING THE RESEARCH
Analyzing the Market
Going into the topic of nutrition and meal planning for children, we were surprised to find that despite the market being saturated with mobile apps aiming to help adults reach a desired weight and fitness goals, the same can’t be said of children’s nutrition.
There were a small handful of mobile apps created for parents; they either provided educational information, or provided a reward system in the form of a goal or game, but none offered both.
Researching and Empathizing with our User
We asked five parents...
on their experience planning and preparing meals for their young children.
We found that parents use a combination of the following methods to learn about the nutritional intake requirements for their children:
• Nutrition Class
• Parenting Books
• Pediatrician's Advise
• Word-of-mouth from other parents
• Internet + articles
• Based on personal assumption
BUT despite having multiple educational sources, parents still face the following issues:
• Parents have to gather and compare info from various sources
• Parents would need to research continuously as their children get older and their nutritional intake requirement change
• Parents with more than one child will need to do individual research for each child
KEY INSIGHTS
• All parents are actively finding ways to get their children to eat more fruits and vegetables.
• When the healthy options are chosen by the parents, kids tend to be very picky with their food and often leave the food unfinished; this becomes an issue of food waste, and also means the kids are likely not getting the proper servings of fruits and vegetables they need.
• Among the parents who indicated pickiness as an issue with their children, they stated that they need to present options to the child in order to get them to eat their vegetables.
• Finding out the right nutrition for a healthy meal is time consuming, and often expensive.
• Older children are given more control to choose and prepare their own meals. While this lessens the parent’s responsibility, the downside to this is that the parent isn’t completely informed about the nutritional content of their food.
Yup — it turns out parents still have trouble getting their children to eat vegetables and all the "stuff that's good for you".
Empathy Mapping
Having learned from the experiences and insights of parents with young child, we were ready to organize our responses onto our empathy map and define the major pains and gains of our users, the parents.
PAINS — the current frustrations:
• Parents are unsure whether the meals they provide offer all the necessary nutrients their child actually need
• Parents are putting healthy foods on the plate - but the kids are refusing to eat them
GAINS — what the parents desire:
• The healthy choices selected by the parents are approved and accepted by the child
• Not needing to spend so much time or frustration figuring what to prepare for the next meal, and then also making sure it’s nutritionally balanced
• Ideas to incorporate fruits and vegetables into meals, as whole or through creative recipes
Meet our User Persona —
Olivia is a mother of two children — a 5 year old son and a 7 year old daughter. While Olivia loves cooking and trying new recipes, both her children are incredibly picky eats and don’t always want to eat the fruits and vegetables given to them.
Sometimes Olivia will come up with fun recipes for her kids on the weekends and find creative ways to incorporate vegetables into ingredients. On the weekdays, her fulltime job keeps her busy so she is often short on time for healthy meals.
CONCEPT
Using the Moscow Method to Identify MVP Features
With many features in mind and limited time, we realize the importance of identifying the features of highest priorities.
At the top of the list for Must Haves, we have:
• A collaborative parent-child shopping planner which will be the key feature of our app
• A dashboard with recommended nutrient intake for each child
• A reward system to motivate and incentivize children, who will be our secondary users on a specific portion of the app
Sketches and Wireframes
Information Architecture and Sitemap
DESIGN
KEY USER FLOWS
Profile Setup: Add a Child
Scenario | User is a new user who just created a new account
Task | User will add a child profile to her account to enable the Dashboard feature
Start a List Using the Shopping Planner Feature
Task | User will use the app’s key feature, the shopping planner which requires opinion contribution from both the parent and child, and encourages the child to make his/her own decisions
Update Dashboard
Scenario | User has a confirmed shopping list from the Shopping Planner feature, and has returned to the app after preparing the meal
Task | User will update the child’s dashboard tracking the child’s daily nutrient intake
OTHER KEY FEATURES
Dashboard
—
The dashboard tracks each child's progress towards their daily nutritional intake.
The data is organized by food groups and the recommended number of servings per group.
Reward System
—
To make the app more fun for the children, we incorporated a point and reward system with the shopping planner feature. Parents will be able to add custom rewards that will incentivize their children to make healthier choices for more points.
Each ingredient has a number of points assigned; the healthier the items, the more points it has. The child has access to check the rewards and the number of points needed for each reward.
Food Dictionary
—
Parents can use the Food Dictionary as an educational resource to learn about the benefits, properties, and uses of an extensive list of ingredients, or to locate ingredients by benefits and nutritional content.
Shopping Planner Tutorial
—
First time users may assume the 'Shopping Planner' to be a standard list organizer. In order to ensure our users have a clear understanding of its features and benefits, new users will automatically be directed to the 'Shopping Planner Tutorial' when accessing the 'Shopping Planner' feature for the first time.
This tutorial is also available at any time, at the start of the 'Shopping Planner' flow.
VISUAL SYSTEM
Our mood board and visual system took inspiration from bright and color illustrations.
We want our app to be perceived as
FUN
COLORFUL
EDUCATIONAL
INCLUSIVE
REFRESHING
LANDING PAGE
The landing page showcased the key features that distinguish our app from other competitors in the landscape. The Wholesome app is a platform that allows parents to Learn, Inspire, and Plan.
"
healthy kids, happy parents
Build and plan nutritious meals with your children.
Created with both parent and child in mind.
FUTURE ROADMAPS
• Adding to the educational content within the app - building the Food Dictionary page and adding a space for article and blog posts
• Add and change certain features to better accommodate families with many children
• Allow parents to add meals and individual food items to the dashboard tracker without the prerequisite of a shopping list
• Allow parents to take an in-app recipe and use the recipe ingredients as a starting point for the shopping planner
• Building on the many ideas that we didn’t have the time to develop in this version
