Mindfulness Eating App

Quality vs Quantity / Reflections on the creation of a User Persona

We have always believed that business values should be based mainly on their economic results, generating controversy between the quality of the service or product that is offered and the number of satisfied users when interacting with the product, in our case applications for mobile devices.

There is also another aspect related to the amount that generates uncertainty when designing products focused on the users, to build a user.

Today I will dedicate that design report to reflect on the above described and based on the construction of a prototype of a mobile wellness app, in my case related to the link that exists between our physical and emotional balance and the way we eat.

Popularly known as Mindfulness Eating, it is a practice related to meditation and control of breathing at the time of eating. It is related to eating disorders and anxiety behaviors that generate food addiction.

In order to develop the project I thought about the following items:

Objectives:

1. Identify the factors that influence our behavior at the time of eating.
2. Create a qualitative work plan for the collection of information through surveys and interviews.
3. Identify a problem that allows building a User Persona
4. Develop a convergent process that helps the user to improve their day-to-day life.

Design Process

1. Emphatise

The research started in knowing the way we usually eat, when and how we satisfy our appetite and in what way we have the ability to focus all our attention when eating, that is, how to provide an exclusive space to listen to our body, to be able to detail the flavor of each ingredient of our meal, chewing prolonged each bite among other aspects talking.

Taking care of yourself. Harmoniousinfinity

The first results obtained led me to ask myself the following questions:

• What do we eat?
• How do we eat?
• Do we pay attention to what we do?

It has also generated another important support to know the benefits offered by the **main apps related to Mindfulness Eating.**

• Chronometer.
• Tracking.
• Feelings.
• Choosing proper food.

Finally, it can be highlighted that the main benefits generated by the practice of mindfulness eating are:

• Positive Acceptation
• Letting Go
• Pleasure Digestion

Mindfulness Survey Canvas

Thanks to the development of this technique identify the main points that allowed me to develop the surveys and interviews, specifically in the relationship of these with the moment of having a meal: MOOD, ENERGY (CORPORAL AND MENTAL) and FOOD SELECTOR.

Without even thinking about how to offer solutions, my first scenario of uncertainty was created, because the interviewees and people who did the survey had a good relationship with the time of eating because they met the quality standards proposed by Mindfulness eating.

Healthy food made at home. Time spent eating without distractions between 15 and 30 minutes. To Workout between 2 and 3 times per week.

In the only aspect that did not meet the necessary parameters were in the use of devices while they were having their meal, especially the mobile and mainly at lunchtime, food considered by almost all interviewees as the most important of the day.

2. Define

As expected, when performing the affinity diagram, pain points were not reflected to respond to the actual use of mindfulness eating as a tool of weight in problems of eating disorders. This generated two phases of development to formulate the problem statement.

Affinity Diagram Fase 1

Affinity Diagram Fase 2 (Best way to Define the Problem Statement)

Returning to my reflection, it is known that the data required to formulate a problem statement should be based on the lived experience of the interviewees and the people who carried out the surveys, and not on the theoretical basis that defines the problem itself.

Problem Statement

Professionals who eat their lunch at work, need a way to: AVOID DISTRACTIONS WHILE THEY ARE EATING, because: THEY USE THAT TIME TO CONNECT WITH THEMSELVES.

So I asked myself how to propose a solution to something that lacks a correct problem?

Based on this without taking into account the time variable (very important to converge) I decided to define the User Persona inversely proportional to the problem statement, frustrating all the process that had started and not allowing me to advance in the process of prototype creation.

So, when I found no exit, I reformulated the Person:

3. Prototype

Sketching & User Flows / Crazy 8 Method

The idea focused on creating a product that adds value to the Person and congratulates them for their good relationship with the time of eating, especially at lunchtime and when preparing their meals at home.

Paper Prototype

The app complies with providing quality solutions, organization and anticipation when cooking at home and at the same time, offer benefits of motivation, health (body and mind) at the time of eating, mainly at lunchtime.

FINAL CONCLUSIONS REFLECTIONS

I must confess that when I came across the divergence when constructing the user, it was not very pleasant, because if this project had been developed in the field, it would have been a very difficult decision to make.

When you are sure that the problem statement does not respond to the basic principles of your initial concept (Mindfulness Eating), as a consequence it takes you to the starting point of the investigation where it would be safe to discard the people you researched and you will be forced to get a profile that is open to recognize and disseminate that suffers from eating disorders or has a diarrheic pathology such as anorexia or obesity.

It is at this point where I want to emphasize my reflection regarding Quantity vs. Quality. It is important to know well who is our client and who is our real consumer. We have become accustomed to receiving jobs where quantitative results (the largest number of users downloading an app) are expected from us as user experiences and the real sense of the use of time dedicated to an app is not always taken into account (design to creative process).

This creates a dilemma between whether we must develop the product for few people or develop it to generate huge organic traffic on the internet and that the content of that product does not generate more benefit than a massive download.

With this, I do not mean that it is a bad commercial strategy even economic, but I would like to take advantage of my experience during this experimental project to raise awareness in the type of tasks that we must accept or in the challenges we wish to take on a creative and conceptual level.

As explained in mindfulness eating, the balance between who asks us for the assignment and their ambitions must be very constant.

Everything else is history.