Track your meals

Simplifying the process of logging meals to help you succeed in your health journey through behavior change and enhanced motivation.
Overview
Problem

A food log helps establish a baseline for eating habits, allowing individuals to reflect on their behaviors and make informed decisions. But tracking them can be time consuming and challenging.

Goal

A new feature within Fitbit’s food tracker to simplify the process of logging meals, enabling users to stay motivated and aware throughout their fitness journey. This enhancement encourages users to reflect on their eating habits and make informed decisions, promoting healthier, more sustainable changes in their lifestyle.

🏫

This was a four weeks long project executed as part of the HCI method elective.

Team

4 UX designers

Methods

Literature review
interview
Crowdsourcing
Affinity mapping
Persona
brainstorming
qualitative analysis
Usability testing
Kano Analysis

My Role

Researcher
UI designer

Timeline

4 weeks

outcome

Final design & solution

View prototype

01. Quick access

Notifications and widgets offer direct access to the meal logging flow, reducing the number of clicks and lowering the barrier to entry, making it easier to start tracking meals.

02. Simplifying logging

Three easy methods are provided for logging meals — AI-powered image recognition via camera, voice-annotated logging, and text search.

03. Motivation through education

Nutritional and health-related information is introduced through ‘Smart Cookies,’ adding interest and entertainment. Users engage by learning new facts about nutritional value or health benefits, enhancing their experience while gaining tips to improve their habits.

04. Social stimulus

Encouraging users to share their stories fosters a supportive community, motivating them to stay engaged and maintain healthy behaviors.

05. Reflection

The diet tracking provides a visual record of meals and offers daily, weekly, and monthly statistics on macronutrient consumption. This enables users to reflect on their habits, identify dietary patterns, and make informed decisions.

user Research

User needs

We started this project by conducting semistructured interviews with participants (n=5; ages 22-35) about their fitness goals and how they integrate dietary targets into their daily lives.

01. Desire a good diet

Users believe that a good diet is essential for all aspects of life and consider it more important than physical activity.

02. Lack of direction & motivation

While dietary goals varied among users, a common challenge was not knowing what changes to make to achieve those goals, along with a lack of motivation to take action.

It appeared paradoxical that interviewees acknowledged the importance of food tracking for weight management and the role of a healthy diet in supporting physical activity, yet they rarely used technology for these purposes.

Moreover, this insight came from only 5 user interviews. To validate the findings, we decide to use crowdsourcing method and asked a larger group to fill in the blanks for the statement below.

I want to _________ my diet so that I can achieve _________.

This revealed that users had diverse goals, ranging from wanting to change their weight to focusing on specific macronutrients. While some users were highly knowledgeable about nutrition and dietary management, others had less expertise.

[ So why are people struggling to keep track of their dietary needs? ]
secondary Research

Logging meals everyday is highly Tedious.

We reviewed several academic papers that surveyed user perceptions of food logging apps and found that they do not simplify the meal logging process. The amount of information required upfront often deters users from starting, while the numerous steps needed for accurate logging reduce users’ confidence in completing the task effectively.

45%

Said it takes too long to enter the data

40%

Felt apps did not hold their interest long enough

32.8%

Found existing diet apps confusing to use

29%

Wanted control over data sharing

36%

Left app because of hidden costs like features hidden behind freemium models

Target users were defined.

Users who have tried tracking and found it cumbersome, but still wish to understand their food consumption to make necessary improvements to their diets.

Behavior change model

To encourage existing users to consistently log their meals, we need to design for behavior change. Our research identified a key challenge: users often abandon tracking due to the high cost of involvement, which must be addressed through our intervention.

Social Cognitive Theory

The theory suggests that if the capability to change one's behavior exists, enabling self-efficacy, making the recipient aware of the potential health outcomes, and reinforcing these two aspects will help achieve one's behavior goal.

Project goals

Our objective was to facilitate behavior change in the user by increasing their self-efficacy, providing positive external reinforcement, and managing outcome expectations through improved knowledge.

01. Simplify meal logging

Reduce the barrier of entry to tracking the foods eaten in the course of a day.

02. Reward the activity of logging food

Reward users with informational tidbits about the food they logged to reinforce the outcome expectations.

03. Enable social engagement

Providing social proof, and using engagement to drive the motivation to log.

04. Reflect on food habits

Allow for a reflective analysis of foods consumed, giving the user agency in determining how they wish to modify their diet to meet their health needs.

Design

Brainstorming focused on simplifying goals and enhancing motivation.

Evaluation

Usability testing with 5 participants

Using the think-aloud protocol, five users were asked to perform four assigned tasks while their actions were observed. We then posed several questions to gain insight into their reasoning behind their approaches and evaluating the prototype. We also conducted a Kano Analysis to understand which features were the most desirable.

01. Diet tracking

Central to the app, and most important feature for all user, most users found it clear, concise and useful

02. Food logging

All users chose to log in using the camera function and thought it was a straightforward way of doing things.

03. Smart cookies

Users like that it is informational, useful, and fun, but they have trouble recognizing and associating it with nutritional knowledge.

04. Social engagement

Users may not use the feature and share stories themselves, but like to look at others’ stories.

Kano Analysis

We identified five most essential features 1)Diet Tracking, 2) AI Image Recognition, 3) Smart Cookies, 4) Nutrition Information, 5) Social Engagement and posed two questions about each of these features to the same participants:

Q1: Given the feature is part of the application, how do you feel?

Q2: Given the feature is not part of the application, how do you feel?

Based on user responses, we labeled 3 features:

👍 Must-have

Customers expect to be present in a product. If these features are not present, it will lead to dissatisfaction.

🙌 Performance feature

Customers are satisfied with when present and dissatisfied when not present. The level of satisfaction increases as the level of the feature increases.

🤩 Delightful feature

Customers do not expect to be present in a product, but when present, they generate a high level of satisfaction and delight.

01. Diet tracking

Must-have feature

02. AI image recognition

Performance feature

03. Smart cookies

Delightful feature

04. Nutrition information

Must-have feature

05. Social engagement

Delightful feature

Conclusion

Where to Improve

Accuracy of AI image recognition could be potential pain point.

We also need to find a way to enhance the amount of information that users can input while still benefiting from the ease of use provided by the lower barrier to entry.

Cookies feature is useful but needs improvements.

While Smart Cookies feature played a vital role in reinforcing expected outcomes, it did not meet user expectations during usability testing. We have yet to decide whether to improve or abandon it, and this decision will require further research.

Even if users do not directly engage with others through stories they find it useful to stay motivated.

Social Stories feature was well-received as a motivational tool, but it did not meet certain user needs, such as accessing shared food recipes. We need to explore ways to incorporate these missing features.