Properly - Balanced Diet App

About this case study

Properly is a unique shopping experience for buying groceries that helps people have a balanced diet from good sources of nutrition. Properly achieves this by providing them recommendations on what to eat based on their physiological conditions

About this case study

Researching about the landscape, finding potential problems, identifying possible solutions, applying UX principles and guidelines and visual designing

Indians on average eat more carbohydrates, less protein and less fruit and vegetables than newly published dietary recommendations by The Lancet.

Daily Intake (g) vs. Daily calorific intake (kcal)

Indians also tend to eat much more sugar and processed food than what is recommended, even when they have the money to eat more diversified diets.

Indians consume between 200 and 300 Kcal every day of foods that the commission says are harmful for individual and planet health. This includes junk food and eating out.

Possible factors affecting Indian's eating behaviour:

Stress
Unbalanced meals intake
Lack of dietary education
Ignorance towards health
The rise in disposable income
Insufficient knowledge of serving size
False practices
Unreliable information overload
Technological advancement
Advancement in medical science

Diseases caused by unhealthy lifestyle:

Heart diseases - 28.1% of total deaths in India in 2016
Stroke - 7.1% of total deaths in India in 2016
Diabetes T2 - BMI has the highest impact
Obesity
Osteoporosis
High blood pressure
Cancer - 8% of total deaths in India in 2016
Nutritional deficiencies
Heart diseases, Stroke and Diabetes T2 are among the top 10 death causes in 2017. View Source
% change from 2007 to 2017:
Heart diseases (increased by 49.8%)
Stroke (increased by 37.1%)
Diabetes Type2 (increased by 53.8%)

Prilimilary survey results (Attitudinal Research)

A thorough online survey was conducted on a mixed sample of 56 participants to know about their nutrient knowledge in general.

Only 16.1% people read the nutritional value of edible items before buying
78.6% people said they consider 'Quality' while buying fruits & vegetables. One reason could be because there is no information regarding available nutrients at the selling points.
Around 67.9% people said they 'checkout the variety' in the store then decide which fruits & vegetables to buy. This might be happening because of their lack of knowledge about nutrients present in the F&Vs.
A large proportion of people buy branded food & snacks also when they go out to buy fruits & vegetables. Possibly because of their rise in income, wish for a western lifestyle and branding of packaged food as "natural".

But, is healthy living even a priority for Indians?

YES! According to a research from global market intelligence agency Mintel reveals that nearly half (48%) of consumers in India aim to live a healthier lifestyle, followed by better time management (30%), improving relationships with family and friends (25%), and traveling (24%).

Surprisingly, Indians are willing to pay more nutritious snacks, with 39% of snackers saying they're willing to pay extra for fruit and vegetable snacks. (View Source)

As a result, between 2012 and 2016, India had the highest number of food product launches carrying a natural claim in Asia and was the fifth largest market for these launches globally, accounting for 6% of the world’s food launches labelled as ‘natural’ (View Source)

So, what exactly is healthy lifestyle?

According to WHO, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, reducing fat, sugar and salt intake and exercising contributes to a healthy lifestyle.

Limiting the project scope

For this project, I am focusing only on achieving good nutrition.

Recommended Dietery Allowance (RDA): Brief Explanation

While studying about achieving good nutrition, I stumbled upon this term 'RDA' which basically means an estimated amount of a nutrient (or calories) per day considered necessary for the maintenance of good health.

An important thing to note here is that this applies only for healthy people who are free from any special conditions.

The formula for RDA is:

RDA = 1.2 * EAR

Where 1.2 is a constant when the information about standard deviation is insufficient and EAR is Estimated Average Requirement.

The EAR depends on:

Age
Height
Weight
Sex
Physical Activity level
Physiological condition (pregnancy, lactation etc.)

When I searched for RDA information on food items we eat...

I found that:

There is irregularities in serving size of similar commodities
Similar commodities have different nutritional chart
No nutritional information available for fresh fruits, vegatables and unpackaged grains.

Screenshot 2020-09-25 at 3_54_38 PM_edit

Screenshot 2020-09-25 at 3_54_47 PM_edit

Different serving sizes in popular Noodles brand

Different nutritional value in two wheat flour brand

Screenshot 2021-06-29 at 8.50_edited.png

Screenshot 2021-06-29 at 8.50_edited.jpg

Comparison between 2 cornflakes brands that advertise themselves as healthy:

Brand 1: 30g serving with 200 ml of cow's milk.

Brand 2: 30g serving with 120ml skimmed milk

Modified Design Brief

To help Indian consumers construct a balanced diet.

User scenario

This a a story of Roopal, who is a home-maker and usually does the shopping for her whole family.

Intervention 1

Encoding all the nutrients into a scannable QR code which will be printed on products

On scanning through a custom app, users can know which things are suitable for their requirements.

Final Solution:

This solution has been made to enhance the shopping experience of fruits and vegetables only because F&Vs makes half of the platter and are the primary and most beneficial source of diverse nutrients

How does it work?

Take a user's physiological measurements - Age, Gender, Weight, Height, Physical activity
Prepare the user's Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) and hence calculate their Recommended Dietery Allowance
While shopping, when the user fills up their cart, Properly will show how much of their nutrient requirement is fulfilled from fruits and vegetables in realtime