Food, not only exist as a source of energy and nutrition to human beings, but also gives emotional comfort and carries cultural values in people’s daily life. Thus, the consumption of food is no longer related to fulfilling the need of hunger, but also as a way to deal with human
...
Food, not only exist as a source of energy and nutrition to human beings, but also gives emotional comfort and carries cultural values in people’s daily life. Thus, the consumption of food is no longer related to fulfilling the need of hunger, but also as a way to deal with human emotions, facilitate social bondings, celebrate cultural events and etc. Improper way of consuming food can result in negative consequences in people’s health condition, such as getting overweight and obese, as well as many other types of diseases. To help people manage their own eating behavior, food-tracking tools were designed to keep a record of people’s food intake, as a reference to access their eating and for themselves to make changes accordingly. How do we design a food tracking tool that can support people to collect meaningful data around their eating behavior and reflect on them in an engaging way? From the literature research and user research great insights were drawn on the current experience of using food-tracking tools. Based on that, through iterative developing, an mobile application design was detailed and evaluated. The project aims to provide a new perspective on how people can manage their eating behavior by self-tracking food they eat and the related influencing factors. The idea behind it is to empower them in discovering how the implicit reasons are repeatedly affecting the way they eat, environmentally and psychologically, rather than to regulate people to follow specific diet rules.