This document describes a proposed mobile app called VeggieViz that aims to encourage people to eat more vegetables. It would work by prompting users to take photos of their meals and send them to the app. Users would then receive abstract representations of their vegetable intake compared to friends and recommendations. The goal is to make users more aware of their vegetable consumption and motivate them to improve through social comparisons.

1. This was your lunch:
VeggieViz
A conceptual design by
Stephanie Carter and Neema Moraveji
Design Challenge: Influence at least 5 people to
create a stronger habit of eating vegetables
each day through the use of mobile technology
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

2. VeggieViz
Persuasive Purpose
Encourage people to more regularly eat veggies by making them more
cognizant of what they are currently eating through a ‘selfless self portrait’ of
food consumption and comparison to friends and a recommended standard.
Industrial Design
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

3. Meet Jason, a ‘motivated novice’
• a busy MBA student that likes team activities
• has been told to eat more veggies by mom, girlfriend, and “the media”
• wants to eat more veggies because thinks healthy=cool
• likes some veggies (if they are covered in sauce)
• doesn’t know how his intake compares to recommended portions
• has an iPhone and wants to track his food intake
• eats out a lot (restaurants, campus, delivery)- doesn’t take time to cook
• usually eats with a friend or two
• typical daily intake: breakfast (coffee & bagel), lunch (sandwich, chips, coke),
dinner (fish tacos, side salad, salsa, beer)
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

4. How VeggieViz works...
The next morning, Jason After one week (or month),
Every day before mealtimes, receives an image from Jason receives a photograph
Jason receives a text, VeggieViz via text message that showing himself and all the
prompting him to photograph depicts an iconic representation foods he’s eaten during that
before eating the meal and text of what he’s eaten the day period. He makes this his
it to VeggieViz. before, how he compares to his computer desktop and posts it
team, and how he compares to on his fridge to remind
the recommended daily servings. himself to eat well.
Jason - May 17
4 veggie portions, 80% of recommended. 3rd best for 5/17 4

5. Prototype of VeggieViz
Your lunch: 3 veggie portions! Nice!
Today: 3 veggie portions, 80% of rec. 3rd place today.
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

6. Features/Functionality
• All you do is photograph your food. We do the rest. We even
remind you by txt to take the photo.
• We turn your images into abstract, iconic representations for
you and send them by txt. No software to install.
• We may create a ‘team’ of 5 who know each other.
• We will use MTurk or do it ourselves.
• Does not count calories, works on a higher unit of analysis:
portions. Less granular, more understandable.
• On the iPhone, texts from the same number are sorted
temporally so you have your history right there, timestamped.
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

7. Theoretical Justifications
Motivation
• acceptance, fear- awareness of what i eat, how i compare to friends, and
how my eats compare to recommended eats
• hope - my consumption is not just about numbers- I am what I eat is visually
represented and gives me a picture of how i could improve my wellness.
• pleasure - It is funny, and approachable information, acting on which might
lead me to feel better
Trigger
• spark - request for input of daily photo of dinner or lunch
• facilitator - receipt of daily visuals of self and friends
• facilitator--> signal - cumulative visualization of my monthly consumption,
on my fridge, or on my computer desktop.
High Ability - The simplicity factors are:
• brain cycles are reduced (no calorie counting)
• time is reduced (only quick input needed from user, not time to analyze)
• physical effort is reduced (use one hand to take quick photo of meal)
• socially acceptable (people think you’re just texting when you take photo of
food. also, your friends are your teammates, so it’s fun)
• routine (smart phoning- texting, checking email- is already a common
complement to mealtime)
• money (information is free)
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

8. Initial user feedback
ACTIONABLE:
I want it compared to what a healthy diet is.
see progress over time- competing against self
What about a sandwich?
What about snacks?
Individual or social? Trusted friend circle only?
FULL LIST:
“[if] i have to send my girlfriend this info, maybe i’ll get a salad instead.”
“I might not like results but think it could be interesting. would depend on how it was displayed. i wouldn’t want it to just be abstract,
like here’s what you ate, or here are calories. i want it compared to what a healthy diet is. want to know where i’m off and where ok.
eg: fine on carbs and veggies but bad on saturated fat. i need a benchmark.
“i want to be able to see progress over time- competing against self.
“It would be cool is if you could link up the data to restaurants in my area. You need to eat more of x, and here’s some places where
you could get x within your budget.
“What about a sandwich? How do you know what veggies are in there?”
“I snack a lot. Each time?”
“The link to friends puts me off a bit. it’s good in theory but i don’t think i’d use it. maybe if i was more proud in my eating habits i might
like it, but i find it invasive and don’t think i would want that. i prefer seeing my own progress. i already know friends eat more than
me. I don’t think my friend will keep me accountable but someone you’ll live with might, like girlfriend. but still ultimately prefer to do it
alone. if it’s just internal, it might be easier too.
“I already self-monitor myself by looking and thinking about my garbage. I’d love to see a visualization of all my garbage. I like the
idea of showing that concept with food and veggies.”
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

9. Shortcomings of Design
Do we have to be more direct? Will self awareness of veggie consumption ultimately drive
behavior change? Does this hope fall into the trap of believing that ‘information should drive
behavior change’? Do we need more specificity? i.e. [text--> “eat a pepper right now”] or
[Carrot Mondays- carry a carrot around with you all day. Eat it if you wish.]
Is it embarrassing? Are people willing to share their eating habits with friends/strangers? [is
eating pie for breakfast shameful for the average person? what if you are overweight? what if
people knew you were trying to diet?]
Has the focus become too broad (entire diet) instead of just veggies?
Is it too complicated? The behavior is simple for the user but is the feedback too indirect and
abstract?
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

10. Related work
Photographing meals 'could help weight loss'
Taking a photograph of your meal before you eat it can encourage weight loss, a new study suggests.
Slimmers began to eat healthier food when they were asked to take a picture of what they were eating, scientists found.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/2674514/Photographing-meals-could-help-weight-loss.html
http://www.daviddeal.info/research/photodiaries.shtml
http://shareurmeal.com/
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

11. Expansion - What else is possible?
• Other form factors or ID possibilities
o Taking a photo too annoying/weird/forgetful? We could have a
phone number where you could leave a voicemail at the end
of the day (or any time) with the food you ate and we’ll txt you
the image.
• Other features and interactions
• share your intake on Foodbook (our social network) or FB/twitter
• completely automate the process using mturk
• give you approximate caloric, fat, carb counts
• bypass the photo step by integrating directly with the iPhone purchase
system, analyze receipts to provide the details to you automatically
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

12. Next Steps in Design Process
• Decide if we want teams.
• Recruit 5 participants that fit our persona.
• Can we auto-text them the photos reminders?
• Figure out how we will solve issues like “what dish is that?!”
• Design the image so that they get a nice ‘history’ in the
iPhone SMS history view.
• Do we need a trigger before dinnertime to txt them something
like “You must eat 2 portions of veggies during dinner” ?
• Should we track all food groups (veggies, fruits, grains, meats,
dairy, others), or only veggies?
• How we are going to track ‘strange’ un-foods?
• Decide on our icons. E.g. “all veggies are represented by
lettuce, grains by a slice of bread”.
• Do some example meals: sandwiches, spaghetti, tacos,
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu

13. In summary
Lots of people want to eat better. But you need to be able to measure something if you want to
improve it. We make measuring your food intake easy.
There are lots of apps for tracking your diet (e.g. DailyBurn) but they are annoying: who wants to type
in that stuff? Nobody, that’s who.
We want to reduce the barrier to tracking as much as possible. Short of an automatic solution, taking
a photo is probably easiest.
Stanford University, Spring 2010
CS377v - Creating Health Habits
habits.stanford.edu