The document describes a conceptual design called "Eat A Rainbow" that aims to motivate college students to eat more vegetables daily. The design involves a website that assigns users a daily vegetable color challenge. Users earn points for eating vegetables of the challenge color and completing their rainbow of vegetable colors. Their progress is tracked on the website via a rainbow diagram. The top 5 users are displayed on a leaderboard to encourage competition. The design is intended to make eating vegetables more fun and motivate healthy eating habits through gamification.

1. Eat A Rainbow A conceptual design by Nicole Fernandez and Alex Muller Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu Design Challenge To motivate 5 people to eat more vegetables daily

2. Eat A Rainbow Persuasive Purpose To motivate 5 people to eat more vegetables daily. Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

3. User Description College Students Characteristics: Don’t eat enough vegetables Tend to eat unhealthily Eat primarily in dining halls Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

4. Joe Eats a Rainbow Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu At lunch the next day, Joe keeps his eyes open for red vegetables. Because his goal is to complete the challenge, he doesn’t even realize that he would normally walk right past the vegetables. That evening, Joe enters the vegetables he ate during the day into the website. His Vegetable Rainbow Meter displays his progress toward eating a whole rainbow, and gives him extra points for completing the challenge. Joe is a typical Stanford student. He knows that he should eat more vegetables, but somehow he always ends up eating fried foods and soft drinks. Joe wants to change his eating habits for good. One day, Joe discovers the Eat A Rainbow Challenge. He sees that Eat A Rainbow will help him get a balance of vegetables into his diet and let him track his progress. After signing up, Joe receives his first vegetable challenge color. Joe can get extra points for eating vegetables of this color. Joe realizes that he has finally managed to start eating vegetables. He can’t wait to complete his rainbow. Challenge Color Is RED Challenge Completed!

5. Prototype of Eat A Rainbow Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu The Vegetable Rainbow Meter (left) shows the user’s progress in consuming different colors of vegetables Users will receive emails (above) telling them what the next color Challenge is

6. Features/Functionality Users sign up to participate on our website An email is sent every evening to all participants, informing them what their Vegetable Challenge color is for the next day and asking them to record their vegetable consumption for the current day The user’s progress toward completing his rainbow is reflected by the rainbow diagram on the website. Each color of the rainbow is a progress bar for vegetables of the same color. Users make extra progress if they ate the Challenge color for the day The five users who have progressed the furthest on completing their rainbows are displayed in the Top 5 Leaderboards Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

7. Theoretical Justifications College students are a great audience because of their access to dining halls, which provide a wide variety of vegetable options. The daily Challenge color provides motivation to seek out vegetables that day, and adds an element of fun because of the bonus points you receive for finding it. Displaying the Top 5 leaderboard adds a social element to the Eat A Rainbow challenge, as users can see who’s in the lead and try to compete to be at the top of the list. The web-based nature of our design allows anyone, anywhere to take the Eat A Rainbow challenge. Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

8. Plan for User Testing Users will be recruited from at least two different Stanford dormitories Users will be asked to create an account on the website and participate for at least 10 days The website will track users’ progress and record their participation Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

9. Shortcomings of Design One possible drawback of the concept is that users may forget about the daily Challenge color, and therefore not eat vegetables on that day. Smaller dining halls may not have a wide variety of vegetables Participants may lose motivation if they struggle to find the vegetables, or if they just get tired of eating them Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

10. Expansion - What else is possible? Other form factors or ID possibilities The website interface could be ported to a Facebook application, to increase the visibility and virality of the Eat A Rainbow challenge Text messaging could be used in place of email reminders in an attempt to target the times when users are actually eating Other features and interactions The competitive aspect of the interface could be increased by allowing users to view other people’s rainbows The system could add bonus points or virtual trophies for various feats – eating a rare vegetable, completing your first rainbow, eating 5 different vegetables in one day, etc. The website could support the ability to upload pictures of the various veggies people find, or allow users to make comments on each others’ progress We could communicate the health benefits of the various colors of vegetables to our users Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

11. Next Steps in Design Process The website must be implemented, including front and back ends. A simplistic design will be used for the first version, with an emphasis on an appealing rainbow progress meter. Users must be recruited; we hope to enroll students from a few different dorms on campus, to sample a variety of dining halls Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu

12. Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu Evaluation of Design Project How well does the idea reflect concepts from class? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How well does the design match the design brief? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How viable/convincing is the proposed solution? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

13. Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu Evaluation continued… How well could this solution scale to reach many? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How well does this document communicate? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bonus Points How insightful is the proposed solution? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

14. Stanford University, Spring 2010 CS377v - Creating Health Habits habits.stanford.edu Additional Comments: Overall remarks or additional comments here