1. Design Brief
1.1. Target Audience
The target audience for FoodMood is people who want to monitor their mood according to their food intake. They not only want to count calories, but also track how their mood is being affected by what they eat. This includes people who:
are diet conscious
are carbs/ sugar conscious
want to improve their mental health
want to monitor their caffeine intake
1.2. Problem Description
1.2.1. Initial Design Challenge statement
Monitor your mood based on what you eat .
1.2.2. Problem
People often fail to realize how their eating habits affect their mood and daily interactions with people. Whether it is mood swings or unhealthy addictions, like caffeine or sugar, they all get out of control if not kept in check. There exist apps that count calories or apps that track what elements of your day affect your mood in what way but we haven’t found any application that lets you track moods based on eating habits [ Table 2 from (Caldeira et al. #)].
We aim to spread awareness about Nutritional Psychiatry and help people better their eating habits with more than just calorie tracking. Better Food = Better Mood ✔️
The high-level user activities that will be supported are:
Food recommendation on the basis of how you are feeling.
Food tracking/monitoring
Calorie counter
Nutritional Psychiatry: Is Food The Next Big Frontier In Mental Health Treatment? (Namavar and Han)
"These days it's common to hear food referred to as medicine. What's so surprising to many people is the fact that this statement powerfully applies to mood," says David Perlmutter, M.D., renowned neurologist and host of the upcoming series Alzheimer's: The Science of Prevention.
In fact, an emerging field of research known as nutritional psychiatry is getting an increasing amount of attention for just this reason, with studies revealing drastic improvements in depression, anxiety, and other conditions among patients who make strategic dietary changes. This has prompted more mental health professionals to start asking their patients a simple yet potentially life-altering question: What have you been eating?
1.3. Competitive Landscape
There are many apps that provide food monitoring, calorie tracking, and mental health apps to monitor the mood but there aren’t any apps that combine all of this functionality that is linking food to mood that is how what their eating habits are affecting their mental health. Some of the apps for each of the categories are:
Calorie counters:
MyFitnessPal, 4.4/5 ⭐ (2M reviews) 50M+ downloads
Top weight loss app
Tracks calories and foods
14M+ foods
Nutrition insight metrics
Barcode for nutrition
Recipe Planning
Calculates needed calories for weight loss
MyNetDiary, 4.7/5 ⭐ (47k reviews) 1M+ downloads
Interactive home page
Barcode scan
Make ur own foods with custom nutritions
Links steps, weight, workout
Calculates needed calories for weight loss
Tips
Mood Trackers:
Daylio Journal, 4.4/5 ⭐ (344k reviews) 10M+ downloads
Google Editors’ Pick
Max Privacy (pin)
Minimal
Mood History tracking
Insight charts
See the calendar in pixels like Moodflow
Set up reminders
Mood Patterns, 4.8/5 ⭐ (1k reviews) 100K+ downloads
Privacy (AES encryption, pin code)
Mandatory, long instructions
Mood patterns (Line graphs for mood against date)
Location, Company (who you were with?), Primary & Secondary Activity
Scales that show moods before and after an event
Associations of your moods and who you were with
Sleep insights
Moodflow 4.2/5 ⭐ (2k reviews) 100K+ downloads
Minimalistic UI
Color coded mood history
Track mood history (line graphs)
Correlations (people)
Gratitude Journal
Customizable
Photo gallery
Privacy (pin code)
Habit challenges/tasks
1.4. System Goals
The system goals include features that are needed by the users. These include:
Create a profile
Input what type of food one had
Amount of food intake
Automatic calorie count
Input feelings/mood
Food recommendations based on mood
Insights on how your diet is affecting you
Predictions of your mood based on your diet
Water tracking and reminders
Healthy recipes for food that is recommended
2. Needs Finding Study Plan
2.1. High-Level Study Goals
How aware are the users in our population about the impact of food on their mood?
How often do users in our population notice the change in their moods with better eating habits?
To what extent do the users in our population keep track of their eating habits/mood swings?
What motivates the users in our population to use any calories/food intake tracker?
2.1.1. Recruiting Criteria
Attitudinal
Acknowledges the impact of eating habits on mood.
This criterion excludes people who refuse to acknowledge the impact of eating habits on their moods and those who believe its impact is too minimal to be considered.
Characteristics
Understands basic English language
Behavioral
Has used a diet or mood tracker at least once
Expertise
A decent user of technology (applications, websites)
Diversity (based on experience with similar applications)
Someone who has never used any tracker, but acknowledges the impact of eating habits on their mood.
Someone who has used either a mood tracker/diet tracker at least once.
Someone who regularly keeps track of their eating habits and mood swings.
Diversity (based on age)
To be as inclusive as possible, we can recruit users by considering two age groups i.e
(15-25 years old)
(25-35 years old)
2.2. Recruiting Strategies
Friends and Family - Each member will be looking for people who fit the recruiting criteria within their social circle.
Proxies and Snowballs - We will start looking for people within the university that we can connect with through our social circle
Our last priority will be to post about our UX research study on our social media to get potential volunteers within the university.
2.3. Interview Protocol
Do you ever feel that your food affects the way you feel or do you ever think of eating a specific food when you are feeling a certain way?
Are you well informed of the nutritional value of the food you eat?
Hi, my name is ________________ and I'm here today to better understand how people manage their diet and moods and how the both might correlate. This interview will take about 20 to 30 minutes, during which time I'll ask you some questions. Throughout I'd like you to treat me as if I don't know anything about the subject. A couple of things before we start. First off, everything about this interview will be confidential. So even if we publish information that we use from this interview, it will not be linked in to your name or to anything that's personally identifiable to you. If we quote you in any documents, they will also not include your name. If there's anything you really don't want on the record, even despite that confidentiality, please let me know. We'll make sure that it's not in any reports. Secondly, this interview is entirely voluntary on your part. I don't expect that there will be any uncomfortable questions, but if there are any, you can let me know and we'll exclude them. If at any point you feel uncomfortable and want to exit the interview, please let me know and we'll just cancel the entire process. Remember, this is not your test. Do you have any questions for me before we start with the questions? Do I have your permission to record this interview?
2.4. Main Interview
<start recording>
Current eating habits
What food do you like?
What do you usually eat and drink in a day? Your breakfast, lunch, dinner?
Do you prefer to order food or cook it yourself or do you prefer going out?
How often do you do that?
Do you ever get bored of that food?
(if yes)...What do you do if you’re bored?
Is there anything that you cannot go without having in the day?
Do you have a go-to meal for different emotions?
Do you think having or not having a certain kind of food changes your mood in any way?
Are you satisfied with your current eating habits?
Nutritional Value
Do you think you are well informed of the nutritional value of the food you eat?
What is your definition of unhealthy food?
(if they consider something unhealthy)...Does it bother you at all to eat something unhealthy?
Do you think your eating routine needs to change in any way?
(If yes)…Do you want to work on improving it?
(If yes)…What specifically would you want to improve or change in your diet?
Specific foods (might be personal)
How often do you have something sweet?
(If yes)…What is the most amount of sweet food you have consumed in a day?
(If yes)…Would you consider yourself a sugar addict?
How often do you drink tea/coffee?
(If yes)…What is the most amount of tea/coffee you have consumed in a day?
(If yes)…Would you consider yourself a caffeine addict?
Is there any other food you think you might be addicted to?
(If they are addicted to any of the above)…How does not having food you are addicted to affect your mood?
Mood related
How often do you have changes in mood that you cannot understand?
Mood swings, frustration, irritability?
(if yes)...What factors do you think affect that?
What are your thoughts on stress eating?
Do you stress eat?
Self-improvement
What is your opinion on self-improvement?
(If yes)…Have you ever used an app for self-improvement purposes?
(If yes)…Have you ever made a timetable to do something?
(If yes)…Have you faced any difficulties following that timetable?
Our App
Would you want to be informed on how the food you eat is affecting you?
Would you like to have delicious recipes of food that have a good nutritional value?
If you found out that the suggestion will help counter bad mood, would you follow it?
What is a solution you would like to have for the problems we have discussed today, if any?
This marks the end of the interview, I appreciate your patience. Thank you for your time and participation. If anything comes up after I leave feel free to email me. I might have to bother you again with some follow-up questions and if you want I can send you a copy of the report that we write based on the interview. Do you have any questions? Thanks again!
<end recording>
I have ended the recording.
Is there anything you would like to share off the recording? It will be confidential between me and you only, not even my group members?
Team Dynamics
Muhid Abid: Defining scope and design problem
Rabbia Sajjad: Worked on high-level study goals and recruiting criteria
Khadija Bashir: Worked on the project brief
Maryam Zaheer: Worked on interview protocol and script
Works cited
Caldeira, Clara, et al. “Mobile apps for mood tracking: an analysis of features and user reviews.” AMIA Annual Sumposium Proceedings Archive, vol. v.2017, no. 2017, 2018 Apr 16, pp. 495-504. PMC, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5977660/. Accessed 8 March 2022.
Kunst, Alexander. “U.S. adults that used apps to relieve stress 2017, by age.” statista, April 2017, https://www.statista.com/statistics/699527/us-adults-that-use-apps-to-relieve-stress-by-age/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%2011%20percent%20of,aged%2061%20years%20and%20older. Accessed 8 March 2022.
Namavar, Roxanna, and Christine Han. “Is Nutritional Psychiatry The Next Big Frontier?” MindBodyGreen, 12 December 2019, https://www.mindbodygreen. com/articles/why-nutritionalpsychiatry-is-next-big-frontier-in-natural-mental-health-treatment. Accessed 8 March 2022.