HälsoHjälparen : En användarvänlig kostprogramsapp

Sammanfattning: Since the start of the pandemic, the number of downloaded health apps have increased by 25 percent (Orcha, 2021). Today, there are hundreds of apps available. However, these are deficient in several aspects. Some of them offer complete diet programs, but then the user lacks the flexibility to freely choose what to eat. In other cases, the user may create their own programs. Instead, a time-consuming method is required where the user must either critically evaluate different foods from a database or alternatively enter the nutrient content for different foods him- or herself. This has led to the idea of an app that automatically generates diet programs that matches the user’s needs for energy and energy sources, at no cost to flexibility. This is a bachelor’s theses in industrial design engineering at Luleå University of Technology (LTU). The project has been carried out for ten weeks and has corresponded to 15 higher education credits. The purpose of the project was in part to give people interested in diet the opportunity to create their own, individualized diet programs quickly and easily, which will lead to healthier eating habits. The goal of the project was to develop a prototype for an app that generates high-quality and user-friendly diet programs with minimal effort from the user.  The project has followed IDEO’s user centered design process. At the beginning of the project, a project plan was made followed by a literature study that resulted in a theoretical framework. The project followed three major phases: context research, idea generation and concept development. To investigate the context, a survey was first conducted to investigate people's opinions regarding today's diet apps. Furthermore, a competitor analysis was performed consisting of several steps, most notably user tests on competing products. Based on the data that was gathered during this phase, two personas were created. The idea generation phase began with a brainstorm to generate partial solutions. Four different solution proposals were then created with the morphological matrix method and then evaluated with a concept weighting based on criteria gathered from previously collected material with support from an interview. In this way, a concept was chosen for further implementation. In the concept development, paper sketches were first made for the selected concept. Then an early prototype was made in the form of a wireframe in Adobe XD. Based on this wireframe, the final prototype was then created. The final concept resulted in a prototype for an app called HälsoHjälparen (HealthHelper) whose main function is to generate customized meal plans that match the user's needs for energy and energy sources. Furthermore, the focus lieson usability through the implementation of other functionality based on the needs identified throughout the project. The project is considered to have fulfilled its purpose by developing a product that can potentially improve peoples’ health.