Inner Buddies

Client:
InnerBuddies

Type:
Internship

Process:
Research, Ideation, Design, Develop, Test

Overview:
During my 5th semester, I worked as an intern at the Dutch start-up company InnerBuddies. Based in Venlo, they offer personalised advice to their customers based on microbiome analysis. Their main focus and goal is to support their users as much as possible in their journey of improving their gut health. The internship's duration was 5 months, during which I had to develop the concept for an interactive meal planner on my own, following the phases of Research, Design and Development.

Research Question

"How can I develop an interactive meal planner that will help InnerBuddies' users have an easier time following the advice from their microbiome test results?"

Main problem
The main issue that I had to find a solution to in this project was the fact that the number of InnerBuddies' customers that followed the nutrition advice was pretty low. This was due to the fact that the company offered dietary guidance in the form of a long list of food items that their users had to somehow integrate into their diet. Because this is not very convenient and user friendly, my assignment was to come up with an interactive concept that would support users in their journey.

Goal
The main goal of this project was to create a tool that will support and guide the customers as much as possible in the steps after receiving their test results. This meal planner acts as a dedicated space for users of all ages, which will make the process of following the nutrition advice way easier. At the end, the main objective is to increase the number of people who follow the diet plan and achieve health results.

For this internship I decided to make use of the Scrum method and work in sprints. Throughout each phase, which lasted a couple weeks, I worked on one or few main tasks, which in the end resulted in testing and iterations where needed. The To-do's were determined at the start of each sprint, each of them taaking shorter or longer, depending on the work I had.

The Solution

The InnerBuddies' meal planner - a dedicated space where the company's customers can easily follow the dietary advice from their microbiome test.

An interactive tool for users of all ages who can now focus on improving their nutrition choices in an intuitive and simple way. The meal planner offers a straightforward design and helpful features, such as planning meals in advance, targeting specific problems, changing portions, tracking nutrients and calories, and getting an overview of their progress.

The main job of this tool is to keep the users more informed, giving them an easier time following the dietary advice and keeping them motivated.

Prototype

The user goes to the home page of the planner and chooses a date to add meals.

The user has chosen a date. Everytime they switch the date, the progress is being saved in the databse.

After they choose a time of day (breakfast in this case), they are presented with the extensive meal and ingredient database. Here they can also choose a goal (filter) to target.

The filter shows only those meals/ingredients that directly influence the selected goal.

The user goes to the detail page for the meal/ingredient, where they can adjust the amount, see the servings and get a summary of the nutrients.

The user has added the ingredient to their breakfast plan. On the side, the goals progress bars and the nutrition chart change dynamically with every added meal/ingredient.

On another page, the user can see an overview of their health journey and an estimated projection of their future progress.

Further Development

Although I managed to come up with a solid concept for the meal planner and develop it, there are still some aspects and features of this project that can be improved. Further research could be done to determine which features and designs are in trend for such a product. Improvement of the design and the intuitivity is recommended, which in the end should be tested with the target group of the company to evaluate the current state of the meal planner. Lastly, the left functionalities should be developed, such as complete nutrient tracking process and progress overview.