Leafy Green - Healthy Eating & Fitness App for Diabetics

Overview

Project Background
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood glucose. Hyperglycaemia, also called raised blood glucose or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body's systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels. In 2014, 8.5% of adults aged 18 years and older had diabetes. Between 2000 and 2019, there was a 3% increase in age-standardised mortality rates from diabetes. ¹ The increasing number of diabetics have been getting more social awareness on social media groups or channels, e.g.,Facebook groups. There are more physical and digital diabetes products placed to the market.
Diabetes people used to build up their life habits, e.g., meals, activities, etc. Since diabetes is a chronic disease, diabetics see the doctor regularly. They use the blood glucose meter to check their blood glucose. Some of them must take medicines, and people with more serious diabetes must do the Human Insulin Injections. 
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Pain points:
‍1.     Forget to take the medicine, or do the Human Insulin Injection
2.     Do not aware of which kind of food diabetics cannot eat
3.     Forget to check the blood glucose with a blood glucose meter
4.     There are not enough channels to obtain diabetes knowledge, seek advice, etc. 
5.     Diabetics spend a lot of time doing glucose checking, obtaining update diabetes information, purchasing diabetes products, etc. 
6.     There is a certain number of diabetics who are elderly, they are less tech-savvy
Problems & Objective

Research

The research goal is to know more about the user behaviours, expectation, and frustration of diabetic groups, for example, how do the diabetics monitor their blood glucose level? Where do they obtain the update news of diabetes? Do they use mobile app to manage their diet? On the other hand, I would like to find out their pain points and potential needs in order to come up a solution and implement it into an iPhone/Android App.

Online Survey & Summary

The survey is focus on the people have diabetes. There are totally 75 submissions. There is 33% participants have diabetes and they used the iPhone/Android App to record their blood glucose checking result. The most of them think healthy eating, taking medicine on time, keep learning and researching are quite important. There is 40% of the interviewee use the glucose meter to daily check their blood glucose.

User Interview (Face to face) & Summary

It is quite challenge to find the interviewees who have diabetes. Finally, there are 2 interviews conducted. The 2 interviewees are with different background and occupations. Both interviewees have diabetes. They check their body blood glucose every morning and jot down the records. They have trying to do the research and learning the news and update of the diabetes. They think it is very hard to find a centralised platform the obtain the knowledge of the diabetes. They also manage their daily menu to take less carbohydrates. One of the interviewee uses the App to manage her blood glucose checking result and another interviewee told that he spends a lot of money on the diabetes products, e.g. the test strips, meters, see doctors, etc.
NEEDS
FRUSTRATIONS
MOTIVATIONS
• 2/2 interviewees takes medicine of diabetes
• 2/2 interviewees would like to have a reminder to ensure they take medicine of diabetes on time
• 1/2 interviewees expects to reduce the expenditure on diabetes products, e.g. test strips.
• 2/2 interviewees expected more professional advices
• 2/2 interviewees spend much time to manage their diabetes everyday
• 1/2 interviewees will find the diabetes products with a more reasonable prices
• Expect an efficient daily diabetes management
• Obtain more information or update news easily
• Sharing and know some people also have diabetes
• The font size is too small to read
• The App is too technical to be use
• The App does not help to ensure they take medicine on time

Competitor Analysis

A vision of Health APP Health is an important topic nowadays. There are more people concerned and seeking advice on how to keep their life and diet healthier. Here comes a few APPs popular and doing excellent for this. There are a few categories included in these existing healthy APPs, i.e., Set Goals, Tracking, and News update. However, there is no such social media APP specifically designed for the diabetes group. The APP Carb Manager helps users keep tracking of their intake of carbohydrates every day, it is also an excellent function to help diabetes user groups to manager their blood glucose.
STRENGTHS
STRENGTHS
STRENGTHS
Branding and Marketing
- The  brand image is organic, natural, and healthier
- Target people of all ages
- The UI is quite clean and simple
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Function and Features
- Tracker for self-track of the calories of breakfast, lunch, and dinner
- A community for sharing and obtaining update health news from or with others
- Recipes for sharing and obtaining the healthy meal from or with others
- Social interaction, e.g. like, comment and share
- The app also includes a function of Scan which enables a user to scan food to obtain the detailed food information
- There is analytics, report, and reminder for users to track their process
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Style and Design
- Functional-oriented, simple and straightforward
- Green and orange as a colour matchThe app is easier to use
Branding and Marketing
‍- It’s found in 2005, and later acquired by Under Amour in 2015
- Target people of all agesThe UI is professional
- The app is a tool that targets the user group looking for an increase or loss weight, track their diet and calories

‍Function and Features
‍- The dashboard provides an quick summary and insights
- Diary enables the users to input their daily food recordsNewsfeed is a channel for exchanges the update status, news, and messages between the users
- Plan is a channel to provides training plans for aggressive users

‍Style and Design
‍- Professional- Multi-function support but well organised Blue and yellow are the main colour brand colour match
- Tech-savvy and professional
Branding and Marketing
‍- Starting in 2010, it expanded to be one of the top macro tracking apps, with 15M downloads and a growing community of users taking interest and responsibility for their health
- Target people of all ages
- The UI is quite clean, simple, and professional
- The idea of the APP is to help users to manage their Calories

‍Function and Features
‍- Daily Log as a dashboard shows the quick summary and insights
- Goals for users to check the updated status of his/her progress
- Meals for users to record what they eat every day
- Connect for users to interact with other members, there is articles to share the updated health notes/news

‍Style and Design
‍- Casual but professional- Multi-function support but well organised
- Green is the key brand colour
- Tech-savvy and professional
WEAKNESSES
WEAKNESSES
WEAKNESSES
- Text-based designed UI, not appealing enough- Professional but formal
- The quality of the Community can be improved
- The Community is based on the sharing of users, lack of the sharing from the expertise
- The Recipes are based on the sharing of users, lack of sharing from the expertiseUI is not professional enough, e.g., the hierarchy of the font size, colour matches, etc.
- Its positioning as a tool rather than as a social media platform
- The interaction is limited
- The Community is based on the sharing of users, lack of the sharing from the expertises
- There is no suggestion of recipes
- Its positioning is a tool rather than as a social media platform
- The interaction is limited
Persona
Based on the findings in the interviews, I have created two personas. The first persona is a man, aged around 40. He is a professional designer and he has just found himself got diabetes. He starts to manage his lifestyle, e.g. have the healthier diet, doing more exercise, etc. The second persona is created and defined as a woman, aged around 36. She is a Product Manager of a hotel. She has more chance to have the diabetes in future as most of her relatives have the diabetes. She has been taking care of her healthy and daily tracking her blood glucose since few years ago.
Refine the Design Goals for next stage
Based on the research and findings, I refine the Design Goals. I will develop an app to provide an integrated solution for the diabetic’s users. There will be a community created in the app to enable the people to chat there, sharing the information, getting support, which will reduce the mental impact for the people have diabetes. The app will have a channel for learning update news and knowledge. For people have diabetes, they need to buy the diabetes products regularly, e.g., blood glucose test strips. There will be a online shop in the app for the users to buy the relevant products.
Interaction Design
Site Map
Since I am going to design an iPhone/Android app to integrate most common functions for people have diabetes, the Site Map will includes News Feed (for checking or sharing the most update news of diabetes), Fitness & Diet (for tracking what users eat and result of doing exercises), Online Shop (for people to buy the various diabetes products), Group Chat (a community to exchange the ideas or knowledge, share the experience, and make friends).
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Define the Flows
According to the design goal, there are the three main Tasks flows the app should execute. The first one is for users to record the glucose checking result. The second one is for users to create a workout plan and take a record. The last one is for users to buy the product at the online shop of app.
Task Flow
User Flow
Wireframe
Then, I created the wireframe of the key pages. The Landing page is a dashboard for users to check the highlight data. There are links to the other pages. The Blood Glucose page is designed for people with diabetes to check and jot down the result everyday. There is also the news feeds for users to check the update news, post shared by others, etc. The Shop page is for people to buy the diabetes products. I also create page, My Plan, for users to create and manage their exercise plan. I have kept the whole structure as simple as it can, the CTA buttons are easily accessible, which will be more user-friendly for all-aged target users.
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User Interface Design
Moodboard
The idea of the Leafy Green is to introduce the healthy lifestyle to the people. Fresh, simplicity, fun & enjoyables are the keywords for its brand promise and green as the core visual value. The following is the moodboard I created accordingly.
Brand Style Tile
I further develop the Brand Style Tile based on brand promise and core value of the Leafy Green.
UI Kit
The UI Kit is prepared for building the design layouts.
Prototype
Here is the High-fidelity layout design. I have used three key color to create the layouts in order to make the whole product image standout, and keep it fresh and simple enough. I used green as the call to action color which is applied on the button, links, etc.
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Usability Test

Report
OBJECTIVE
‍The objective is to test if the users find it smooth or difficult to access the different pages of the App, e.g., Daily entry of Glucose Checking, News Feed to create a post, My Work Out Plan and Shop for purchasing required items.

The test will be focused on the mobile view. The test will consist of three parts.

Part 1 is to get users to Add a New Entry for Blood Glucose Checking.
Part 2 is to get users to add a plan under My Plan.
Part 3 is to ask users to order an item from the Shop.
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‍PARTICIPANTS
No. of participants: 2
Age:40-65
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SUMMARY
There are 2 interviews are conducted. The 2 interviews are with different background and occupations.
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Both interviewees finished the all tasks but the second interview spent more time as he is the elderly. He is less tech-savvy and found the fonts are too small for him to read.

TEST DEBRIEF
•All participants found the Blood Glucose button and add the entry of the Blood Glucose checking result
•All participants can go to the page, My Plan, to select the plan to try
•All participants go to the Shop, and place an order.
Final Design
Finally, I revised the design layout into a final version based on the feedbacks collected during the Usability Tests. I am happy that I can design the app which provide a user-friendly experience and create the values for the people have diabetes as well as the people concerns about the health. Thanks all the participants to contribute in my research and usability tests.
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Source images courtesy Pinterest. The images are not commercial purpose.

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ORIGINAL DESIGN by Jim Mau.
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