Overview
The premise of this research project was to investigate the impacts of a new vegetarian or vegan lifestyle on nutrition and social dynamics.
Our design solution was a meal documenting application for vegetarians and vegans to understand and track nutrition through a simple, entertaining system.
Duration
Aug 2022 - Dec 2022
My Role: UX Designer
I primarily contributed to the ideation and design phases of this project, leading efforts in concept sketching, wireframing, and prototyping.
​
I collaborated with 3 other Georgia Tech students, two researchers and a designer.
Technology & Tools
Figma, Qualtrics, Miro, Trello
Process
Defining the Problem
During initial investigation we discovered that although there are many health benefits to vegetariansim or veganism, essential nutrients are more difficult to obtain in these plant-based diets.
​
Our aim was to understand methods used by vegetarians/vegans to learn information about receiving proper nutrition as well as consider the process in which they acquire diet-appropriate foods.
Background
Target Users
Our intended user group is comprised of individuals who have been vegetarian or vegan for less than 1 year.
Research
Survey
We created a survey to develop an initial understanding of our users with key questions that probed for motivations behind their practice of vegetarianism or veganism and problem areas that could arise as they adhere to their diet.
​
Our survey comprised of 16 questions and was distributed to 3 online vegetarian communities and 1 in-person university organization, Veggie Jackets. We garnered 62 responses.
Semi-Structured User Interviews
Based on our survey responses, we conducted interviews to gain in-depth understanding of the level of concern users have around nutrition. As our survey alluded otherwise, this was a time to discover other barriers the user group faced.
​
We conducted 45-minute interviews with a loose script that guided the conversation.
Task Analysis
Our final stage of research included a task analysis to identify strengths and weaknesses of existing systems that serve as solutions to major user pains: tracking nutrition & selecting restaurants in a group setting.
We explored 2 applications: MyFitnessPal (meal documentation) and HappyCow (vegetarian/vegan restaurant search)
Analysis & Findings
Affinity Map
We interpreted and organized 150+ notes to identify major themes relating to:
Contextual Barriers to
Dining Out
Social
Tensions
Data Storytelling
To further empathize with our target users, we created Personas to encompass identified patterns as well as Empathy and Journey Maps to highlight the engagement between a user and a specific context.
Key Findings & Design Requirements
We came up with our design requirements that would ensure a successful solution, based directly on user needs and research findings.
User Quotes
Findings
Design Ideas
Ideation
Concept Sketches
​
1. Meal Documentation / Nutrition Tracking
The purpose of this design solution was to allow vegetarians and vegans to track their daily nutritional intake through documenting their meals.
Based on recorded meals, users can receive feedback on their nutrition levels. Furthermore, in introducing achievements and a 'gamified' element, the application provides incentive for users to remain consistent in their documentation.
2. Dine-out Experience Planning
This design solution was aimed at alleviating frustrations surrounding dine-out experiences for vegetarians/vegans, particularly when doing so with non-vegetarian social groups.
The core concepts include 'event' creation, diet restriction filters, and restaurant menu information, all of which remove extraneous communication about food criteria that a vegetarian or vegan would normally face. Additionally, a voting feature for group suggested restaurants streamlines decision making.
Illustrated by Jenna Cao
User Feedback: Sketches
We then conducted user feedback evaluations to gather sentiment around app interface features and functionality. Participants overwhelmingly preferred the meal/nutrition documentation solution.​​
Participants are not likely to use the restaurant interface in their own friend groups due to its time-consuming and complicated nature
​Participants like the idea of quantifying nutrition and food intake differently and more simply than existing applications allow.
Wireframe and Feedback
As the nutrition documentation solution was unanimously chosen by participants to be more useful to their needs, it was developed into a comprehensive wireframe.
​
To asses our wireframe we met with participants and prompted them to visit each screen and complete basic tasks. We asked for feedback on the flows, layout, and information architecture.
Design
Big Picture
Features
1. Logging historical meals using scan (auto-detect)
2. Logging an item with manual search and portion tool
3. Editing items; creating a meal out of multiple items
4. Understanding nutritional intake status through daily summary views
5. Becoming informed about the importance of nutrition
6. Viewing trends and sharing achievements
Design System
The color palette of our project not only reflects the team’s preference, but also our primary and secondary shades of green have a connotation of health which aligns with our design solution’s core value of promoting nutritional health. The primary colors were also selected with contrast in mind, to ensure our foreground and background colors were compliant with WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
Evaluation
Cognitive Walkthrough
Expert reviewers were recruited to assess the learnability of our design solution from the perspective of a new user. Given a persona and a series of benchmark tasks, we hoped for experts to identify interface elements that could be challenging for users to understand.
Moderated Usability Tests
Through usability tests, we strived to improve the user experience of our design solution by determining issues faced by participants as revealed in recording interaction success rate. Furthermore, we endeavored to assess how well our solution addressed the problem space by evaluating the overall satisfaction our representative users felt in their response to open-ended questions and completing a System Usability Scale (SUS).
Design Recommendations
