The Challenge
Design an experience where schools can influence students’ food choices when they’re on campus.
Research
I began my process by jotting down initial thoughts, assumptions, and digging deeper into existing school initiatives that were inspiring to me, such as Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ campaign and the documentary, ‘Wasted’, which touches on Farm to School dining. These brought me to USDA programs that provide schools with the information they need to promote healthy eating and education in the classroom, but I noticed that technology was a key factor that was lacking in these campaigns (ie: printables, outdated pdf downloads, etc.).
Reading and watching videos about healthy initiatives in schools quickly taught me how important it is to connect children with where their food comes from, as it directly impacts their healthy eating habits. I became even more interested in how schools are incorporating gardens into not only the cafeteria, but the curriculum.
I then did a competitive analysis and looked closely at several types of apps, which included meal tracking, recipe discovery, kids games, and learning; noting what I did and did not like.
Finding the problem
In my research phase, I had face to face conversations with a young relative in school, a school teacher, and a friend who works at Nickelodeon, to gather user insight on how kids react to healthy foods, current school meals, and what creates excitement for them to learn.
With a combination of online research, competitive analysis, and user insight, I aimed to break down the problem to get to the root cause. How do kids currently feel about their school meals? Healthy foods? Are there opportunities to teach students about nutrition? Does your school have a garden?
Key takeaways:
"I love cooking at home with my parents, but the food situation at my school is “yuck!” - student
“Kids love to learn if there are fun, healthy incentives such as gold stars and volunteering opportunities” - teacher
There is a lack of healthy eating choices in schools.
There isn’t a Farm to School program.
Kids aren’t educated on nutrition.
The school nutrition system is broken.
“Eating healthy is boring” - student
“If schools serve unhealthy foods it is teaching children that they are the right foods.” - Chef Ann Cooper
Problem statement: Kids are not making healthy food choices at school.
I was then able to develop two personas. The student is the primary user, although I often kept the teacher in mind throughout the process.
Primary User
Secondary User
““Some kids have never seen what a real tomato looks like off the vine. They don’t know where a cucumber comes from. And that really affects the way they view food. So a garden helps them really get their hands dirty, literally and understand the whole process of where their food comes from.””
Solving the problem
There are many programs aiming to put an end to unhealthy eating in schools and establishing Farm to School dining. However, the main issue is fostering good habits early on, making healthy food choices on their own, and establishing a fun way to connect kids with their food through learning and activities. Schools have an enormous responsibility and opportunity to influence how kids eat. I formed this thinking with the student at top of mind, into syndicated goals for the solution below.
Mission statement: Connect kids with healthy food choices at school.
Goals:
Track meals to educate and incentivize kids to make healthy choices.
Educate and excite kids on healthy eating.
Give kids ownership over food choices.
““It’s about finding ways to make healthy the easy choice.””
Solution
While I don’t have control over which schools commit to a healthy eating program, I can break the barrier between food education and technology in schools that do. My solution, ‘Dig In’, is an app that provides a fun way for kids to learn and connect with the food that they eat.
For the sake of this project I am making a large amount of assumptions here, which I would normally validate through data and in this case, school partnerships.
Assumptions
The participating school has an established Farm to School program where students take care of, and learn about the plants in the school garden during class.
The students have smartphones.
The students are in elementary school.
The cafeteria uses the school garden to provide healthy eating options.
The teachers have their own interface for the app.
Teachers add students by their emails through the app as well as the plants for the class garden.
The participating school uses Google for their students’ emails.
Sketches & Wireframes
Now that I had my goals in mind I was able to inform the UI decisions and begin sketching ideas and flows for the user.
Then I moved my ideas to Sketch and did several iterations of wireframes. During the iterative process, I kept pushing to simplify the language, interactions, and layout in order to appeal to kids and to keep them focused on primary goals within the app.
The app solution shown is for students in elementary school.
Below is the user flow where a student opens the app for the first time and goes through onboarding. I decided to include intermittent splash screens to create a fun, encouraging, and reassuring experience for kids. I started the questionnaire with something fun to get them excited and not too overwhelmed with a tough question right off the bat.
High fidelity design
I was heavily inspired by kids drawings, their natural curiosity, playfulness, and the thick lines of coloring book art. I decided on the name ‘Dig In’ to play off the well-known phrase and the act of gardening.
The navigation is meant to be in order of progression: from garden to plate. The first tab is focused around the class garden, plant education, fun facts, and recipes the student can bring home to their family. The idea is to establish healthy eating habits while getting kids excited about the foods that they are growing.
The middle navigation tab allows the student to track what they ate that day, have access to the school’s daily menus, learn more about healthy choices, and provide feedback to the school on how they enjoyed their meal. I used color psychology to quickly indicate which foods are healthy vs ok vs unhealthy.
The final navigation tab is focused on the student’s information, their collected badges, and saved recipes. Each day a new challenge appears for the student to complete for a new badge. I would love to be able to expand on this idea and allow students to see what challenges other students are accomplishing.
Onboarding
To the left is the onboarding flow in action. In the future, research would help guide the appropriate questions and the amount to ask.
Below are high fidelity design for the drag-and-drop game in the onboarding flow. Dragging a food item in place will trigger an informational modal that fades away after a few seconds.
Closing thoughts
The unhealthy food battle in schools is an ongoing epidemic and technology can help make healthy school initiatives propel forward by providing students with the tools they need to get excited about healthy foods. It can also make learning in the classroom (and garden) come full circle at home and throughout their future. ‘Dig In’ challenged me to think like a child, a teacher, and a parent.
Next steps:
Focus on Teacher and Parent interfaces. How involved should they be?
Develop different interfaces for various age ranges and accessibility. What would ‘Dig In’ look like for students in high school or college?
Dive deeper into connecting students with their classmates to become excited about healthy food choices.
Expand upon fun, smooth interactions and animations to appeal to kids and to further insight confidence in their journeys within the app.
Illustrate more icons/infographics to further educate students on plant growth and recipes.
Strategize push notifications
Add more opportunities for kids to learn throughout the app.
Test it out!
What would I have done differently?
Working within a team would bring development obstacles to light.
Having user testing on various design iterations would help clarify user goals, needs, and feelings.
Listening to more users and going on school visits would have given a deeper understanding to the problems and resolve ambiguity.
Further user interaction data or research would illuminate more opportunities to inform design decisions.
I had a great time with this design exercise and enjoyed working through the challenges to come to a solution that I think would help students get excited about food. Thank you for reading.