PROJECT BRIEF

Platform that uses AI and digital twin technology to revolutionalize the way people approach nutrition and lifestyle.

Smartplate

A health and wellness Case Study in collaboration with Glovo.

ROLE

Lead Designer

TIMELINE

January 2023 - June 2023

TEAM

Me, Tala Alzaid, Constance Cassagnol

SKILLS/TOOLS

User Research, Ideation, Prototyping, Product Management, Figma

PROBLEM

Lack of Health & Nutrition in Society

Why is it so difficult for people to have a healthy lifestyle? While we often see models of healthy lifestyles, from various celebreties to social media influencers, why is it so difficult for the average student or professional? These were questions that our team asked each other, and we struggled to answer these questions.

To address this problem, we decided to target people like us, students or working professionals. While I struggle to eat healthy and maintain a healthy lifestyle while studying and working, I'm lucky to have health concious family members that often check in to make sure I eat well. I can only imagine how much more difficult it must be for people who have to navigate the daunting task of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and diet on their own.

We hypothesize that students and working professionals may be unaware and/or discouraged from pursuing a healthy lifestyle and diet because:

They are unsure how to start
They don't have the time to focus on their diet and health.

RESEARCH

User Research

Reaching out to our classmates, teachers, co-workers and other individuals through social media, we sent out a survey for students and professionals to learn more about their health and nutrition experiences.

After surveying 35 students and professionals across the country, we found that a majority of them are still unsure about how to go about a healthy lifestyle and diet. Even more interesting was the free-response answers to the question "What has been the most challenging obstacle for you as a student or professional to start, learn more about, or maintain a healthy diet or lifestyle?"

"Having to do and plan everything on my own."

"I wish I had more access to a consolidated source of information."

"I'm not sure where to start, specially with my busy schedule."

We were able to narrow our focus to these 3 pain points:

They don't have the means to track their progress, or ability to stay motivated.
They don't have the time or energy to prioritize their health.
They don't have the knowledge to make informed choices about their diet.

Empathy Map

To further understand our target audience we also created a empathy map to analyze exactly how they would think, feel and act.

User Journey

Using the data collected from analyzing our target audience we created a user journey map detailing the simplified process users would go through in order to have a positive experience.

Smart Solutions

From these pain points we came up with the idea to connect people to professional guidance using new innovative technology. To explore this idea further we surveyed another 35 individuals and conducted several in person and online interviews.

From our second round of user testing we found that people are looking for professional help with their health and diet journey. The analyzed results from our combined interviews, survey results and general research gave us the answers to solving the pain points mentioned previously.

They don't have the means to track their progress, or ability to stay motivated: A platform that tracks users' progress and provides them with feedback on their eating habits. It also uses their current progress and goals to show them how they will look in the future, in terms of physical and internal health.
They don't have the time or energy to prioritize their health: A platform that provides users with personalized meal plans that are tailored to their individual needs and goals. The meal plans are created by Artificial Intelligence and validated by certified nutritionists and take into account personal factors, such as dietary restrictions, allergies, and preferences.
They don't have the knowledge to make informed choices about their diet: A platform with integrated AI chat that can help users learn about nutrition, track their food intake, and create personalized meal plans.

Persona

To guide our brainstorming in the next phase of the project, we created a persona named Cody, whose goals and challenges match those we surveyed during our user research.

IDEATION

Brainstorming

From there, I facilitated a Crazy Eights exercise where each person sketches 8 frames that could be used as starting points for our medium-fidelity explorations.

After presenting our own sketches and voting on our favorite screens, we decided to further explore three main features:

AI Health tracking
AI Mealplan
AI Chat

Medium Fidelity

Using the chosen low fidelity screens from our brainstorming exercise, we discussed content requirements for each of the main features, and created a mid fidelity flow. medium-fidelity

Medium fidelity wireframe

PROTOTYPE

Smart design

With the main features of our platform, we realized we needed a specific brand image that matched the essence of Smartplate, the name we chose to identify our platform.

This color palette was created with the aim to portay a wholistic healthy image

We also created an ad campagin on instagram with the intention of creating buzz towards our 'innovative health technology'

Final Prototype

With our brand image and medium-fidelity wireframes completed we were able to see the complete vision and start designing Smartplate's final high fidelity iteration.

High fidelity user flow

Smartplate's inital mockup

High fidelity screens

Feel free to read more about our project here.

REFLECTION

From Concept to Launch

We started our Smartplate journey with one lighthearted video call among 3 friends, to now, a strong, motivated founding team of our future startup.

Coming out of this project, I'm proud to say we were able to achieve many of our goals, including collaborating with Glovo and being able to envision our product as a part of their extensive service, along with recieving valuable constructive feedback about our product and future direction. Though this endeavor, I've learned that there's so much more to launching a product than just the UX— from the importance of developing a strong customer base, to creating a business plan for monetization, and rolling out a barebones MVP before even starting to think about developing a product.

This was the first project in which I had led the design effort, and I look forward to eventually launching the product with my team.