︎ Food Lens
FoodLens is an app paired with a new tag system that helps students make healthier food choices by scanning tags for nutritional info, ratings, and reviews. It simplifies decision-making and promotes healthier eating.
By Xiaoyan Zhao ︎
Hypothesis
With an abundance of options available in the market, the wide range of choices can make selecting the right food overwhelming. Additionally, the labels on products often display ingredients and nutritional information in small, crowded text, making it difficult for customers to examine carefully.
The new tag system and the FoodLens app aim to simplify this process by allowing users to easily compare ratings and nutritional content in an intuitive way, helping them choose foods that provide proper nourishment and improve their overall well-being.
With an abundance of options available in the market, the wide range of choices can make selecting the right food overwhelming. Additionally, the labels on products often display ingredients and nutritional information in small, crowded text, making it difficult for customers to examine carefully.
The new tag system and the FoodLens app aim to simplify this process by allowing users to easily compare ratings and nutritional content in an intuitive way, helping them choose foods that provide proper nourishment and improve their overall well-being.
- Why
When designing a healthy campus, there is often insufficientemphasis on the importance of food and diet. Reports show that nearly half of U.S. adults and over half of children have poor-quality diets, a situation closely linked to the excess of unhealthy food options.
- How
By using the new tag system and the FoodLens app, which provides customer reviews and nutrition rating. Clear and intuitive statistics will be available to help people compare different food options. This simplifies the process of making healthy choices, enabling users to avoid less nutritious products.
- What
FoodLens is an interactive mobile app that collects the latest ratings and nutritional information for various foods and beverages from multiple websites. It also provides rankings of healthy foods and creates healthy recipes. This app will be integrated with in-store tags that offer intuitive data to help consumers make healthy comparisons. By scanning a barcode on the tag, customers can access a detailed nutrition label highlighting key ingredients and potential health risks of FoodLens. A summary of customer reviews will further aid in filtering important information.
- So What
FoodLens App and the accompanying tag system extract key nutritional statistics that impacts people’s well-being. When students face too many choices, they can refer to the organized tag, scan the barcode to access FoodLens, and easily compare products to select the healthier option, ensuring better nutrition intake.
The design continum shows the topics proposed in the database in different scales.
The Link Between Design and Outcomes
· Make comparing and selecting food easier
· Encourage healthier choices
· Promotes the withdrawal of unhealthy products from the market
· Lead to the introduction and production of more nutritious food
As reports indicate, dietary deficiencies are due to a lack of healthy foods and an excess of unhealthy options. With more people choosing healthier products, unhealthy ones will experience lower sales and eventually be withdrawn from the market, encouraging manufacturers to produce healthie alternatives.
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Works Cited
1. "Supermarket Product Choices," Consumer Reports Magazine, last modified March 2014, https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/03/too-many-product-choices-insupermarkets/index.htm.
2."Point-of-Decision Design (PODD) to Support Healthy Behaviors in College Campuses," CADRE, accessed November 18, 2024, https://www.cadreresearch.org/pointofdecision-design-podd-to-support-healthy-behaviors-in-the collegecampuses#:~:text=Point%2Dof%2Ddecision%20is%20a,in%20determining%20points%20of%20decision.
3. Dariush Mozaffarian, "A Nutrition Report Card for Americans: Dark Clouds, Silver Linings," The Conversation, August 9, 2023, https://theconversation.com/a-nutrition-report-card-foramericans-dark-clouds-silver-linings-156200.
4. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Examination of Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols, Overview of Health and Diet in America, Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols: Phase I Report (January 1, 1970), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209844/
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