Objective: Design an iPhone application for the Weight Watchers program. The proposed application should be geared to help motivate new/existing Weight Watchers members to stick to the program.
Time to Complete: 3 weeks
Personal Responsibilities: Sketching, Research, Usability Testing, Argument Creation
Initial Brainstorming
With such a large problem, our team of 4 knew we had to sit down and analyze the current situation before we could start designing. Since our team had no experience with Weight Watchers or any of their members before, we took a trip to our local Weight Watchers to see their methods and the people who partake in the service. When we went there, we found a supportive environment, where the members and the staff have built a community to help each other try and lose weight. With these insights in mind, we went back to the whiteboard, ready to start designing.
We then started to generate concepts. We thought about many different ways to help an individual in the community. There were concepts ranging from creating virtual avatars that would motivate and reflect the current user’s weight loss to the use of simple games that would be unlocked on the user’s phone as the user lost weight. We were at the point that we had so many ideas that we were stuck with how to proceed.
It was at this point where we went back to our coursework, and took a second look at Prof. Siegel’s 7 themes for a good design, and took a step back and took a look at our ideas in this light. We ranked our ideas based upon these themes (i.e. pertinent to the core, the design is human-centered, has transparency, the design is computer imaginative, the design has learnability, it allows for redesign, the design is more craft than art, the design involves the use of tradeoffs), and found that a small set of “mini apps”, a dashboard to allow a user to do small tasks related to the Weight Watchers program easily.
With renewed energy, we then went back to the drawing board to figure out exactly how this dashboard would exactly work and be helpful to those in Weight Watchers. As a team, we worked together to craft some tools to help, pictured in the next section.
Transforming Ideas into a Prototype
We took the dashboard concept further by putting in a point “reminder”. Points are Weight Watchers’ way of measuring the appropriate amount of nutrients one should be eating each day. This would help someone to see how many points one has left in the day. Another concept we had designed into the dashboard was a tool to help one convert the exercise they had performed that day into additional points. Another concept which was placed into this dashboard was a barcode scanner that could tell one how many points a specific product is at the grocery store. This would give one the information necessary at the grocery store to see if a certain product would fit nicely into their plan at Weight Watchers. We also integrated the camera into this design as well, as one could take a picture of the food they were going to be eating a restaurant to know how many points one would be consuming.
To also help reinforce the notion that weight loss is something achieved over a long period of time, we also designed a “tracker” of one’s weight. This could help a person to see what they are doing is not only working in the short term, but also in the long term. We also put some fun activities into our design, too, as we wanted to not only help the user lose weight, but find it a fun and rewarding process.
While designing the dashboard, we found that weight loss is also achieved through the power of motivation and help. We placed a “helper” into our dashboard concept as a means to always give help to the user. The helper would be able to give tips on recipes, exercise, and also recommended places to eat (including the average number of points at each restaurant).
Testing and Redesigning Our Concept
It was at this point where we wanted to test our thinking by using the prototypes above in an informal usability test. We ran through a couple scenarios of use with 3 individuals who were likely to want to use a design such as this. We learned many important details about our design which would empower it further. First, we learned that many of our reminders and suggestions from our helper were too annoying and would be ignored. We also learned that the fundamental idea behind our design was desired: the ability to keep track of points easily, coupled with a methodology to see one’s progress and a way to know the points of a meal beforehand. With this in mind, we worked further to a better prototype.
This is an overall perspective of our app. There are so many different topics one could choose to focus on when trying to help one lose weight, and our app focuses on the ability to know and keep track of one’s intake and exercise. Knowing these two pieces of information would allow one to directly know whether or not what they are doing is of any impact. Our app is the tool the user would use to find out this information.
Pictured below is our task flow of our redesigned prototype, utilizing the knowledge gained from our informal usability test. Our persona, Kelly, a college student, can use this app to help her stick to her Weight Watchers plan. She can scan the barcode of food at the grocery store, take a picture of her food to learn roughly how many points are involved, keep track of her exercise, and find restaurants that cater to her weight loss, plan, all with the help of this app. This task flow also roughly shows what types of technologies would have to run concurrently in order to help facilitate the back end of this app.
Pictured below is our redesigned concept for a Weight Watchers app. The upper-left hand corner is the main screen of the app, which states how many points one has and what one has eaten for today. The upper central picture shows how one could “scan” a food to find out how many points a food is roughly worth. This would then produce the results of the scan, similar to the screen shown in the lower left corner. If a user wanted to scan a barcode, then the user can utilize the methodology presented in the upper-right hand screen. A person can scan their weight into the app by standing on a scale, and taking a picture of their weight. The app would take care of the rest (shown in the bottom center). To keep track of one’s exercise, the person can keep their iPhone on them while exercising, and the app would be able to do the necessary work to translate the effort into “swapable” points.
If a user wanted to go out to eat, he/she can use the app to find any restaurants near their location, pictured on the left. By tapping the blue arrow, a menu will be displayed, and a rough approximation of the point value of each dish will be shown. This is displayed in the center. Our design also helps to reinforce that small changes in weight should be noticeable, so we included an overall trend of the user’s weight to have this information readily available.