Research: Personas

After interviewing the students at UWE the next stage was to create a persona based on these real students. This would allow us to ensure that we are meeting the demands of the target audience and fulfilling their needs for a healthy information system. The persona would also allow us to create scenarios which are effective when designing a GUI. Here's the persona I created:

Bio

• Name: Freddie Jones
• Age: 19 years old
• Gender: Male
• Occupation: University Student
• Home/overseas student: Home
• Study: Sport

Personal Information

• Freddie is studying at UWE on the Frenchay Campus and is currently in his first year of study. He lives in the Student halls on site with 5 others. He plays lots of rugby and tries to eat a healthy balanced diet to keep him fit and energised for his sport.

• He currently studies for 12 hours a week and then has to fit in coursework and training in the week. Because of his tight schedule he finds that making healthy snacks is difficult and often has to eat unhealthy food as its ready prepared such as chocolate bars and crisps. When he breaks for lunch he usually picks up a meal deal from the shop as its close to his lectures and practical’s and its cheap.

• Due to his busy schedule Freddie is finding it hard to find some part time work that fits in with his routine. Because of this he finds he has to stretch his money out month to month and therefore has to buy his food as cheap as possible. The meal deal for him is a cheap and tasty lunch however he would like to eat a more healthy option.

Hobbies

• Freddie plays rugby whenever he can throughout the weekdays and plays fixtures on the weekend.
• He also likes to use the UWE gym on a regular basis to build strength for Rugby.

Issues

• Freddie wants to eat healthy but finds that fresh organic foods are too expensive and time consuming to make meals from.

Goals

• Freddie would like to be able to buy healthy meals for a price he can afford.
• Freddie wants to try and eat his 5 a day as snacks instead of chocolate, crisps etc.
• Freddie doesn’t know what his daily intakes of nutrients are and would like to be able to track this.
• Freddie wants recommendation and advice on what he should be eating.

Research: Interviews

The next stage of the project was to conduct some interviews with the target audience. The Information System that I will be designing will be employed in a cafe in UWE therefore the target audience for my system is students. I asked 4 students a set of questions and collated the results into 3 categories:

Needs

• Dietary requirements.
• Tracking daily amounts.
• Calorie count.
• Healthy eating advice.
• Fit into their current routine.
• Affordability.

Goals

• Eat ‘five-a-day’.
• Awareness of health.
• Keep to dietary guidelines.
• Spend less on snack food.
• Reduce weight.

Tasks

• Use the App regularly.
• Keep a food diary.
• Use advice and recommendations from the system.

Research: App Insights

The next stage of the project was to look at some healthy eating apps to gain some further insight into what I need to include when I start designing my system. I looked at 2 apps and from these I was able to gather the following information which will be vital in my design process:

• Allows you to share recipes with friends to help keep you motivated.
• Uses keywords/categories to summarize recipes e.g. (easy, low fat, super healthy etc.) Helps finds information quickly.
• Tracks nutrition such as protein, calories, fat etc.
• Enter own information to make it personal e.g. food diary
• Use of graphics to help show progress
• Use of icons to improve navigation.
• Simple, consistent and easy to use interface.

Research: Evaluation of the iPlus Kiosks

The next stage of the project was to analyse and evaluate the iPlus kiosks situated around Bristol. This research would give me great insights into what makes a good information system but also more importantly what doesn't and what things to avoid when designing a system.

The Evaluation Results:

Positives

• Easy to find.
• Use of colour to separate different parts of information was clear and engaging.
• Use of maps to display data was slick.

Negatives

• Touch screen response was terrible.
• Scroll function didn't respond well.
• Reflection on screen made it hard to view.
• Search results didn't work.
• Cleanliness was poor.
• Accessibility was poor for example people in wheelchairs wouldn't have been able to view the screen.
• Poor use of icons.
• Printer didn't work.
• Inconsistent layout/fonts.
• Slow.

As you can see from my research the negatives I found certainly outweigh the positives. However this isn't all bad news as from this research I have a huge amount of information on things I should ensure I don't do with my system. For example the negative comment about poor use of icons and inconsistent layout/fonts is useful as I now know that consistency is key and good icons will help the user more. So all in all this research was great for insight.

Research: GUI Touch Screen Design Guidelines and Principals

My initial research was finding out the guidelines for such a system. The system would be touch screen and therefore there are certain principals that I need to take into consideration. After thorough research I combined the findings to make some golden rules when creating the system:

Golden Rules

• Speed- make it fast (this also reduces vandalism).
• Intuitiveness.
• Choice - Less is often more.
• Guidance - Guide the user as much as possible.
• Testing - to find problems and implement changes.
• Must require no user training.
• Reduce cost of human alternative.
• A well-designed kiosk can help increase the profits of an organization and contribute to customer satisfaction.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I will be conducting a project as part of my assessment to research into Healthy Eating Information Systems where my final deliverable will be a graphical hi fi prototype of my final design. As part of the project I will be taking you step by step through my research stage initially and then on to the design stage further on. My design choices will be based on research into real existing products where I will confirm why I designed my system the way I did.