PROJECT OVERVIEW
FoodMood is a personal mobile application to spread awareness of the intake and influence between food and mood. The purpose of this project was to examine the need for a personal mobile application to spread awareness of the intake and influence between food and mood. FoodMood promotes personal development by encouraging users to make healthier choices through creating conscious decisions, goals and routines. The system is personalised to adapt to an individual's goals and needs while allowing them to digest the information and progress at their own pace. It offers individuals the opportunity to contact and share their experience with a health practitioner.
PROBLEM
Mood influences food choice and intake, while food can influence people's emotional states. Systems generally focus on calorie counting and weight loss, which can be restrictive, assuming individuals have linear progress. The main challenge was integrating characteristics of Nutritional, Physical, and Mindfulness applications to provide personal interventions tailored to people's unique needs and development.
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Identifying personal negative triggers
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Behaviour differences around food and mood
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Calorie counting and weight loss systems can be restrictive
Solution
Integrating characteristics of Nutritional, Physical, and Mindfulness applications to provide personal interventions tailored to people's unique needs and development. Our methodology involves an empathetic and informal cognitive approach to implement mindfulness activities, including thinking, remembering and learning to give back a sense of control ability on specific tasks and underlying behaviours. Mindfulness-based interventions allow the user to recognise their negative triggers and provide them with a method to change their behaviour. FoodMood implements real-time self-monitoring around eating, behaviours and the feelings that go with it. The objective of monitoring is to allow users to be aware of what is happening at the moment and act on changing a particular behaviour that may seem automatic or beyond their control.
TARGET USERS
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People who want to be consciously aware and track their eating and mood.
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People who want to stop emotionally driven influences and negative habits.
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People who want to make personal routines.
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People who want to adopt coping strategies.
FEATURES
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Tracking emotions and mealtimes
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Notifications
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The ability to edit mealtime to accommodate the individual lifestyles
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Receiving suitable recommendations for food and activities to enhance emotional states
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Logging food and mood
Empathize
USER RESEARCH
Understanding concerns and motivations are essential for empathy. User personas provided realistic representations in defining user characteristics such as behaviour patterns, goals, skills and attitudes
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Common attributes feeling stuck: losing a job, feeling overloaded with responsibilities.​
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Strategies that helped: turning to friends, focusing on one small task, activities like meditation, journaling, or exercise.
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Ways they stay motivated: accountable to others, maintaining good habits.
MY DESIGN PROCESS
Empathize
Ideate
Test
Define
Prototype
Define
​Mood influences food choice and intake, while food can influence people's emotional states. Personalised interventions are more suitable for individuals with behaviour differences around food and mood as it identifies personal negative triggers. The main challenge was integrating characteristics of Nutritional, Physical, and Mindfulness applications to provide personal interventions tailored to people's unique needs and development.
Ideate
​Mood influences food choice and intake, while food can influence people's emotional states. Personalised interventions are more suitable for individuals with behaviour differences around food and mood as it identifies personal negative triggers. The main challenge was integrating characteristics of Nutritional, Physical, and Mindfulness applications to provide personal interventions tailored to people's unique needs and development.
Prototype
​Wireframes were a significant part of the design responsibility in the User experience to visualise the user interface without image and text.
The prototype was developed on Figma to provide real-time collaboration, view the designs, and leave feedback to rapidly modify and improve the prototype while on the exploration phase.
Registeration Wireframe
About Wireframe
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Mid Fidelity Wireframe
High Fidelity Wireframe
Test
​Testing was necessary for evaluating usability and receiving focused feedback to help discover users' needs and expectations.
Testing also identified constraints and functional gaps of interaction designs that could be improved and modified as the last process.
PROS
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Easy flowing of interaction
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Easily find the content or information
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Clear navigation
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Structured content and visual design
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Fast ability to accomplish basic tasks
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People who want to adopt coping strategies.
CONS
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Back buttons are not emphasized enough
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Frustrations arise when the user needs to input food or mood goals and they can’t find the add button
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3 page interface has too much infinite scrolling and overloads the user with choice paralysis
BEFORE TEST
AFTER TEST
FINAL TEST
Conclusion
This project was a valuable experience for understanding the importance of working through an iterative design process and Agile scrum management. It was imperative to document each development process to stay on track and understand the value of patience and work that enhances the project's direction and clarity. Being able to communicate effectively improved workflow efficiencies and positively influenced collaboration.