EasyDiet — Creating a New Experience with Healthy Eating and Diet

How UX Design helped me understand the challenges faced by people with diets and create a solution that makes people’s lives easier, through the development of a digital product.”

Learn how a solution built on the principles of UX and UI Design aims to enhance people’s dieting experience by creating a diet-based shopping list, grocery shopping, home delivery, and generating recipes based on the user’s list and diet.

The Challenge

My challenge was to understand the influence of technology on the daily lives of those in the gym and on a diet or wanting to go on a diet, and to create a digital product.

Creating a digital product for those on a diet.

Assisting people who are on a diet but struggle to follow it or those who want to start a diet, making their daily lives easier and helping them stick to their diet.

The Current Scenario

Today, many people are either on a diet or want to start one for reasons related to health, quality of life, weight loss, or even weight gain. Whatever the reason, the difficulty in sticking to a diet is a common challenge for all.

Following a diet can be very challenging; with the hustle and bustle of daily life, people get stressed, tired, succumb to temptation, become too lazy to organize, don’t know what to eat, or simply lack the time to stick to their diet properly.

With technology, there is an abundance of information about diets, which often do not yield the desired results and objectives, and sometimes even affect our health negatively.

With so many apps designed to make daily life easier, such as shopping list apps, diet trackers, and others, people often end up ordering food from delivery apps, usually unhealthy options, and struggle to stick to their diet.

How to solve this problem?

Throughout this article, I will explain the entire process I used to solve this problem.

Project Objective

To understand the daily challenges faced by individuals on a diet, how technology influences this process, and to propose a solution through the creation of a digital product.

Create a solution that simplifies the lives of people on a diet and helps them stick to it.

Specific Objectives

Create a solution that assists people in sticking to their diet.

To achieve this, I:

• Defined user profiles through proto-personas and journeys (to understand my audience’s profile).
• Conducted both quantitative and qualitative research (to identify the problems faced by individuals).
• Created a high-fidelity prototype.

Empathy

Conducted a competitive analysis of existing apps in the market.

Analysis

I realized that delivery apps make it easier for the user, as the food is ready for consumption.

Theses apps offer more fast food options than healthy food, wich hinders the diet, as it leads the user to buy because of the ease of not having to prepare anything and because off the apps’ promotions. This was confirmed after quantitative and qualitative research.

Users

At the beginning of the project, I was focused on people who go to the gym and their problems, but after the quantitative research, I realized that my users were others.

So, I identified that users are people who are on a diet and can’t stick to it and who want to go on a diet, so I created proto personas and jorneys and placed them in user groups.

User grups

I placed the personas in user grups, classifying them as those who are on a diet and can’t stick to it and those who want to go on a diet.

After quantitative and qualitative research, I realized that the two profiles had many points in common, so I grouped them into people who diet and are unable to follow it.

User profile

After discovering my profile, the user who is on a diet but cannot follow it, I analyzed the personas to understand the profile and needs of the users.

I found common points and arrived at a persona and their journey.

User context

After discovering the persona and their problem, I created the user jorney, to better understand their needs and pain points.

Future Press Release, Pixar StoryTelling

First validation stage

To put together the research, I used the CSD matrix, to understand users and ask the right questions in the surveys, to know the points I needed to delve deeper into.

I used the quantitative method research.

• I believe that most people follow up with a nutritionist.
• I believe that people kwon what to eat for pre-workout.
• I believe that people can’t follow diets correctly.

The survey gave me the answers and made me discover many things. The answers added value and so I did the validation process.

I was able to understand users better and draw my learnings.

Quantitative Research

I conducted two surveys, firts quantitative research, to validate or discard assumptions I had about users.

The assuptions I wanted to validate where:

• Most people follow a diet and consult a nutritionist.
• They know what to eat for pre-workout.
• They can’t follow a diet correctly.

I created the survey questions, aligning the assuptions. I was careful not to ask too personal questions or offend them, as it was a personal matter that involved their bodies and images.

You can see the quantitative research here:

https://medium.com/@josiiecardoso95/diet-research-39dce12712ce

This way I was able to understand user behavior. Some of the questions were:

Do you know what to eat before go to the gym?

• Yes
• No

What assumption do I want to validate with this question?

Most people do pre-workout.

Do you follow any specific diet?

• Yes
• No

What assumption do I want to validate with this question?

Most people follow a diet.

Are you under the supervision of a nutritionist?

• Yes
• No

What assumption do I want to validate with this question?

Most people see a private nutritionist.

The survey sumary link:

https://medium.com/@josiiecardoso95/validating-assumptions-with-quantitative-research-e6887981f872

Qualitative research

For qualitative research, I used a semi-structured interview, with a question guide to guide the conversation, leaving space for new questions that arose.

With the research I confirmed the points discovered inthe quantitative research, clarified my doubts and managed to better understand my user.

I wanted to understand:

Why do people still have difficulty following the diet even after being monitored by a nutritionist?

Answers I got from users:

• They can’t follow the diet correctly, due to lack fo time, motivation and it is expensive.
• It’s easier to order and recieve at home than to make the food.
• When I buy food on an app it’s just junk food.

You can see the research article and the full research at:

https://medium.com/@josiiecardoso95/semi-structured-qualitative-research-8dbf9c6ad6f9

Next steps

After the research, I edited the persona and the jorney, so I would present solutions to real users.

Solutions alternatives

I used the How We Could thecnique, put the ideas I had there and close what would solve the diet problem and have the greatest impact on people’s lives.

I used the Impact x Effort matrix for the prioritization process. I found the most important point I wanted to achieve:

• Making the daily lives of people on a diet easier so that they can follow it.

The solution

After creating the Impact x Effort matrix, I realized that the best solution for the user, which would make their daily lives easier and help them follow the diet correctly, would be to create an application name Easy Diet, in wich:

The nutritionist gives the diet and the app generates the list, personalized for each user.

Option to purchase through the app and recieve it at home or not.

The application generates personalized recipes according to the diet and list, with information on calories, nutrients and vitamins, helping to maintain a healthy diet.

Weekly diet monitoring so the user can control, maintain and see their progress.

Water control with alarm, helps the user stay hydrated.

And with this, making the daily lives of people who often don’t have time to organized themselves or go to the supermarket easier, also avoiding impulse purchases and those that deviate from their diet.

Differentiatior of my EasyDiet app:

With the pandemic, many food apps started offering grocery delivery, because people want convenience.

There is not yet a personalized shopping list app for the diet on Brazil, wich allows you to purchase and deliver via the app.

But what about delivery, how does it works?

Other delivery apps have partnerships with supermarkets, but how does it work?

• The supermarket is responsible for separating the food that the person chose.
• The app have drives who work for them to make the delivery.
• The application passes the value to supermarkets on a specific day of the week.

Design the solution

After I discover the solution, I applied the sketching techinique in 4 stages (notes, free drawing, crazy 8’s and prototype). I improve the features until I reached the final prototype.

First usability test

I created a prototype in the Marvel app with the drawings and did the screen interactions, I then did the usability test with 7 people on Zoom that lasted 20 minutes.

I did the first test even before making the wireframe, as this helped me not to wast time and correct any errors, to speed up the process of creating the app prototype.

The purpose of the test

Observe whether users were able to perform the proposed tasks.

Tasks:

1. Login
2. Making a shopping list
3. Search for recipe

Identify areas of the application that needed to be changed to improve usability and user satisfaction.

With the feedback, I was able to revise what I needed to better understand what I knew from users and what users were experiencing.

Wireframes and User Flow

Low fidelity

I went through all the ideas I had, organized them and started thinking about usability to make it easier and more intuitive.

Medium fidelity

To create the medium and high fidelity prototype, I used Google’s Material Design 3.

I created the medium fidelity wireframe that shows some jorneys the user will take when using the prototype. I tried to keep the design as close to the final result as possible, I had to make some changes to correct some inconsistencies in the app. I carried out a validation with Heuristics to fix the problems.

User Flow

Style Guide

What feelings did I want the user to feel? The color green is associated with relaxation, diet and healthy eating, and the color orange with happiness, joy and is also widely used by food brands. These are the colors I used, a darker green and darker orange also in an almost earthy tone, reminiscent of brown, associated with comfort and simplicity, also widely used in healthy food brands.

I used the Lato font bringing more legibility, originality, elegance and also because it is light.

Naming and Logo

The EasyDiet logo and name were chosen because it is a simple and easy to say name.

For the logo, I placed a heart together with two leaves, the heart refers to healthy eating, health, self-care and the leaves refer to healthy eating and nature.

And together with the green and orange colors, they refer to healthy eating, wich is the objective of our brand and visual identity.

Logo

Colors

Typography

Lato is a modern, light and elegant sans serif font, made to be used in both small and large fonts. It brings more readability to the text.

Buttons

The buttons were made with a visual hierarchy according to the hierarchy of actions, with a primary, secondary, disabled button, text button, call to action and links.

Components and forms

The icons and components were chosen to facilitate navigation and maintain the visual identity we chose, thus mantaining constancy and recognition.

I used the labels above the form, so it is faster and easier for the user to understand the form.

UX Writing

I analyzed the audience to use the users language. The tone of voice I used is based on people’s relationship with diet, a tone of voice that catches the user’s attention and is friendly, easy, accessible and interesting.

Atomic Design

High fidelity prototype

To view the final prototype, click here.

Usability test

The usability test was carried out with a small sample of 5 people on the Zoom plataform and lasted 20 minutes.

User metrics and business metrics

I let people tell me wich area they had difficulty with and in the end I corrected what I needed to be corrected.

• I wanted to know if there were any difficulties for the user.
• If there was anything to be improved.
• I used the HEART metric.

Usability test results

• People told me that they missed the avatar on the home page, because the apps they use and are used to always have the button and it makes the app easier.

Points that I changed to improve usability:

I placed a small avatar on the profile on the home page where the person clicks on it and the main profile and menu actions appear for the person, making it more common.

Thus, I managed to arrived at an easy, intuitive and usual prototype, where users don’t need to think, they just use it without realizing that they already know what they are going to do.

Conclusions and learnings

The project had some challenges, because the healthy food market is very saturated. I wasn’t sure how to help people follow the diet, what their problems was, besides of course the usual problems with diet.

Through research I discovered that routine, the rush of everyday life and food apps are a temptation, with their promotions and ease, they end up getting in the way of people on a diet.

Through research I discovered the cause, and then the solution for people.

What did I learn?

Some points I learned and think are fundamental:

• The importance of research: it is wich it that I confirmed or not all the persona data, CSD matrix and user jorney, without it I would not have the most important insights into the project.
• Drawing on paper: before starting the wireframe, I made sketches on paper, this helped me understand my ideas and correct things, before even doing them in the program.
• Use a plataform for flow: I used Miro, but there are other’s, it’s great for organizing thoughts, thought flows, etc.
• Understand UI: you need to understand the design rules to be able to create a prototype that is usual and beautiful, for this I used Material Design 3, Nielsen’s Heuristics, Color Psycology, in short I took some time and studied all of this, to understand and create a prototype that was common and easy to understand.

Final considerations

I woul like to thank Lucas Marte and Ana Carolina Feliciano Graça for all the learnings and support.

I appreciate you getting this far!

Author:

I would like to thank Lucas Marte and Ana Caroline Feliciano Graça for all the teachings, support and attention given.