Food Scanner App
Agency: Vidatec
Client: Public Health England
Role: Lead UX Consultant
Positively change people’s eating habits.
Objectives
The primary objective of the PHE Food Scanner app is to enable people to make informed and healthier choices by providing them with real-time information about the nutritional content of everyday food and drink items. By allowing people to scan barcodes, the app aimed to enhance transparency and enable individuals to compare products based on their sugar, saturated fat, and salt content, ultimately leading to improved dietary habits.
Features tested
Nutritional Content Insights
Information about the sugar, saturated fat, and salt content of the product.
Product Comparison
Users can compare different food and drink products based on their nutritional content.
Healthy swap filter
Users can filter healthy swap suggestions based on their dietary priority.
Stages I was responsible for:
User Testing
To ensure the app's usability and effectiveness of new features, I produced an interactive prototype of the FoodScanner app for testing. participants were asked to complete tasks using the prototype, allowing me to observe their interactions and gather feedback. The insights gained from user testing interviews provided valuable insights that guided the app's design, functionality, and user experience.
In-depth User Interviews
I conducted in-depth interviews with a diverse range of users to gain deeper insights into their preferences, motivations, and pain points when it came to shopping habits, healthy food priorities and current Food Scanner usage.
Stakeholder Presentations
I was responsible for presenting the progress, research findings, and user testing outcomes to key stakeholders. These presentations were essential in garnering support, gaining feedback, and aligning stakeholders' expectations with the app's development, ensuring its success and impact.
Insights
73%
used Food Scanner when discussing food choices with children, when the child was asking for another snack.
65%
of participants children used the app
61% Home and 33% Supermarket
Most popular places participant used the app
Conclusion
Based on the findings from user testing sessions, the PHE Food Scanner app has demonstrated its effectiveness and usefulness in supporting people to healthier choices. The inclusion of features such as "healthier swaps" received positive feedback from participants, indicating its value in guiding users towards healthier alternatives. The addition of a healthier swap filter, was well-received, with participants finding it intuitive and beneficial in catering to their individual health priorities.
The new navigation system received overwhelmingly positive feedback, suggesting that it has improved the user experience and made the app more user-friendly. This round of user testing findings validated proposed new features' potential to positively support individuals to make healthier choices through enhanced nutrition awareness.
What people said
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'My mum has diabetes and I rely on tis app to confirm the sugar levels in the foods. It's one of the apps I would not remove from my phone as I use it all the time'
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'This app is brilliant for checking sugar content in food. Visually helps my children see what is not good for them.'
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'The app makes it easy to check food references such as high in fat and sugar. Great for becoming more aware.'