Product Experience
Problem Space
Many health enthusiasts, driven by a desire to adopt healthier lifestyles and prevent health issues, find it difficult to access personalized and easy-to-follow recipes tailored to their specific dietary needs. The absence of a user-friendly platform that offers accurate nutritional information, portion guidance, and personalized meal recipes creates a gap in the market. Eat Healthy aims to address this by providing a solution that empowers users to make informed choices about their nutrition, promoting overall well-being through accessible and personalized healthy eating options.
Problem Statement
How might we create personalized food recipes to empower Nigerian health enthusiasts, so that they can achieve their health goals?
Problem Background
Research Link indicates a growing awareness of the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. Dietary choices have been linked to the risk of developing Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity. These conditions, in turn, elevate the risk of diseases associated with substantial health issues and mortality, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
In addition, according to data from the World Health Organization, a staggering 1.9 billion adults and 41 million children under the age of 5 are clinically overweight, while more than 691 million people are classified as obese.
Research Insights
We conducted user research to understand the pain points of the users: User survey had 14 responses, and we conducted one user interview.
Supporting Data
While conducting our own independent research,we discovered that a significant 78.6% of people were motivated to embrace a healthy lifestyle as a preventive measure against future health issues and diseases.
Furthermore, 71.4% of the respondents emphasized the importance of healthy eating in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Feedback and Pain Points
Despite their strong intentions, they faced several challenges related to their pursuit of a healthy lifestyle, including:
- Difficulties in sourcing fresh ingredients
- Managing calorie intake
- Coping with stress
- Finding motivation to stay on track
- Juggling their efforts with busy work schedules.
Landing on the Solution and MVP
Based on our target users pain points, we knew we wanted a solution that would do the following:
- Calculate the prescribed calorie per day for each user
- Generate the required ingredient list with cooking instructions, nutritional information, and portion instructions for each meal.
- Locate stores nearby with fresh ingredients in store.
Explanation of Solution
Eat healthy is a mobile application that provides personalized healthy food recipes to Nigerians who desire to eat healthy meals within the Nigerian culinary tradition. The app will be designed to execute the following functions:
- Collect information about the users including height, weight, age and specific health goals to provide real-time personalized food recipes.
- Calculate the prescribed calorie per day for each user and generate the required ingredient list with cooking instructions, nutritional information, and serving instructions for each meal.
- Locate nearby stores to purchase recipe ingredients.
Eat Healthy App Features:
- Personalized food recipes
- Portion Control
- Calorie measurement
- Store search
User Flows/Mockups
User Process Flow for Eat Healthy App
Future Steps
Following discussions with users, I discovered that a considerable portion of them desires not only Nigerian recipes but also recipes from various other cultures. This will be addressed in the next iteration. Eat Healthy will provide a broader selection of not only Nigerian recipes but also dishes from a variety of other cultures, meeting the diverse preferences of our users.
Some respondents from the survey were not of Nigerian origin. In subsequent iterations, Eat Healthy will cater to health enthusiasts from diverse nationalities.
Images
Learnings
Product Manager Learnings:
Dooshima Nenchi
My Co.Lab journey stands out as a pivotal experience in my career. I have enjoyed every bit of the program and would take away the following key learnings:
- Recognizing that the process of understanding the problem space and identifying user pain points takes precedence over finding a solution. A thorough comprehension lays the foundation for effective problem-solving.
- Early Collaboration with Design Teams: Emphasizing the significance of collaborating with the design team right from the ideation and research stages. This early collaboration enhances overall team dynamics and fosters a collaborative spirit.
- Essential Role of User Research: Highlighting the critical role of user research in gaining insights into both the problem space and the user dynamics. A comprehensive understanding through research is fundamental to creating impactful and user-centric solutions.
Designer Learnings:
Designer Learnings:
Jo Sturdivant
- Adapting to an Established Team: Joining the team in week 6 of 8 was challenging, as I had to quickly adapt to existing workflows, dynamics, and goals. This mirrors real-world situations where you often integrate into teams mid-project, and flexibility is essential.
- Work-Blocking for Efficiency: With only two weeks to complete the project, I learned the importance of a structured work-blocking system. This approach allowed me to manage my time effectively and meet deadlines under pressure.
- Making Data-Driven Design Decisions: Unlike my past projects, I had to rely on research conducted by others. This was a valuable experience in using pre-existing data to guide design decisions, helping me focus on the core insights without starting from scratch.
Developer Learnings:
Developer Learnings:
Vanady Beard
&
As the back-end developer, I learned how important it is to create efficient and reliable systems that support the entire application. This experience also taught me the importance of optimising the database and ensuring the backend is scalable and easy to maintain.
Developer Learnings:
Stephen Asiedu
&
As a back-end developer, I've come to understand the importance of being familiar with various database systems and modules. This knowledge enables me to build diverse applications and maintain versatility in my work. I've also learned that the responsibility for making the right choices rests on my shoulders, guided by my best judgement.
Developer Learnings:
&
Developer Learnings:
Maurquise Williams
&
- Process of Creating an MVP: Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) taught me how to focus on delivering core functionalities balancing between essential features and avoiding scope creep.
- Collaboration in a Real-World Tech Setting: This experience taught me how to collaborate efficiently in a fast-paced tech environment, keeping the team aligned and productive, even while working remotely across time zones.
- Sharpening Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills: This experience honed my ability to think critically and solve problems efficiently. By tackling challenges and finding quick solutions, I sharpened my decision-making and troubleshooting skills in a dynamic, real-world setting.
Developer Learnings:
Jeremiah Williams
&
All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key
Developers Learnings:
Justin Farley
&
I learned how important communication is when working with a team. Communication provides understanding, advice, ideas, and much more. While working with the product team, I’ve found that communication keeps everything flowing smoothly. Working with a team also showed me that every member brings something different to the table and we all have to work together in order to align and meet our end goal.