CheckMeal: Design and Development of an App
25.05.2022
This article presents a university project developed for the Human-Computer Interaction course.
We designed CheckMeal, an application aimed at supporting people with dietary restrictions, combining multiple useful features into a single tool.
The idea was born from the need to help users easily manage food intolerances, allergies, or personal dietary preferences. CheckMeal allows users to:
- Scan a product’s barcode to check if it contains any unwanted ingredients based on the user’s profile.
- Browse a list of restaurants and view menus filtered according to their dietary restrictions.
Unlike existing applications, CheckMeal merges multiple services into a single platform, making it more convenient for users who, for example, follow religious dietary laws or simply want to avoid certain foods.
We followed a complete Human-Computer Interaction development process:
- Competitor Analysis: Studied apps like FoodIsGood, myCia, and Yuka.
- User Profiling and Personae: Created profiles such as Katherine Simmons (Restaurant Owner), Eleanor Tennant (Person with dietary restrictions), and Patrick Murray (Friend of a person with restrictions).
- Scenario Definition: Developed realistic usage scenarios for shopping and dining out.
- Research Methods: Conducted questionnaires, structured interviews, and analyzed the findings.
- Hierarchical Task Analysis and State Transition Networks: Modeled the user's main actions within the app.
- Expert Evaluation and Cognitive Walkthrough: Performed usability inspections and identified areas for improvement.
- Prototype and Mockups: Built detailed UI mockups and a functional prototype.
- User Testing: Organized controlled experiments, think-aloud sessions, cooperative evaluations, and analyzed incidents and solutions.
Throughout the project, we applied standard HCI methodologies, ensuring a user-centered design approach. Our efforts led to a complete final prototype tested and refined through multiple evaluation techniques.
To explore the full project, including the detailed analysis, mockups, graphs, and the final prototype, check out our GitHub repository.