KNOW YOUR FOOD !
This project was a component of my Market Discovery course, in which our team was assigned the responsibility of validating a business concept. This process encompassed conducting primary research and conducting over 50 user interviews. After successfully validating the idea, I continued to expand on the project by crafting user personas, devising a solution, and creating wireframes, user flows, as well as low and high-fidelity prototypes for the mobile application.
Tools - Figma, Canva, Survey Monkey, Google Forms
Areas - User Research, Mobile App Design
Collaborators - Tina, Micheal, You Wu, Nikil, Varsha
What is Know your Food?
Know Your Food is a user-friendly app designed to help people with food allergies easily determine if the products they purchase contain any of their allergens. Users can simply capture the food labels on products, and the app will promptly inform them if any of their specified allergens are present in the product.
The Opportunity
Of a global population of 7.98 billion, 10.8% have some form of food allergies.
More than 170 foods have triggered an allergic reaction, of which only 8 are common.
53% of America’s food allergy consumers indicate current labels are problematic and interfere with their daily lives.
71% say they spend, on average, 3-5 minutes reading the labels of every single food item they purchase, indicating the need for a universal solution.
Phase 1 - Research
To help understand and validate our hypothesis better, the team began by conducting some primary research which helped us understand the industry better.
Following the initial research, we interviewed over 50 individuals who read food labels on a regular basis. The interviews were done in 3 rounds. The first round consisted of 15 interviews - which were used to identify why individuals looked at food labels. The second round consisted of 20 individuals - which was used to understand the pain points of each target segment. The third round of 15 interviews was utilized to validate the problem and identify who the primary target segment should be.
First Round - Insights
After the first round of interviews, we identified that individuals read food labels for the following reasons :
They were shopping for themselves or someone in their family who suffered from food allergies and wanted to ensure the product was allergen-free.
They wanted to know the calories they were consuming as they had certain health goals, such as weight loss or muscle gain.
Their religion prohibited them from consuming certain types of foods.
They had certain diet preferences, such as vegetarian, pescatarian, and veganism.
After the first round of interviews, we were broadly able to classify individuals who read food labels into five segments.
Second Round - Insights
In the second round of interviews, we focused on identifying the pain points of these individuals and their current solutions.
Religious Restrictions - Individuals with religious restrictions were further sub-classified based on religion.
Muslims require their food to be halal- but are unsure if the product is truly halal as they do not know how certain Ingredients in the product are made. Their current solution is to look for halal certification or use an app that tells them if the food is halal or not.
Jews require their food to be kosher; their current solution is to look for kosher certification on the package.
Fitness concerns - Individuals with fitness concerns primarily looked at food labels to understand the macro level information - primarily protein content and calorie intake; they rarely looked into ingredients unless they were buying supplements.
Pain points include -
The calorie shown on the product is not for the entire product but rather a portion of it, denoted by serving size, which is usually in a tiny font on the package.
Serving sizes are sometimes odd.
This prompts individuals to pay close attention to the serving size to help them understand their calorie intake better. Individuals currently use apps like Healthify Me, Fitness Pal, and Garmin Connect to help keep a rough count of their calorie intake.
Health and Allergy concerns - Individuals with fitness concerns primarily looked at food labels to understand the macro level information - primarily protein content and calorie intake; they rarely looked into ingredients unless they were buying supplements.
Pain points include -
The calorie shown on the product is not for the entire product but rather a portion of it, denoted by serving size, which is usually in a tiny font on the package.
Serving sizes are sometimes odd.
This prompts individuals to pay close attention to the serving size to help them understand their calorie intake better. Individuals currently use apps like Healthify Me, Fitness Pal, and Garmin Connect to help keep a rough count of their calorie intake.