Our first milestone of this semester’s thesis development is our MVP (Minimum Viable Prototype) presentation on 2/17/2022. During this phase, all prototypes are not necessarily needed to be highly developed but they should experiment and iterate as much as possible. Here is a quote my thesis instructor added in our assignment doc:

Crudely render many ideas to find a solution worthy of a more precise investigation. — Frank Gehry

I find that taking the first step to create prototypes is always not easy for me. I think I took too much time worrying about testing and finding people to test.   Also, one key thing of my product is aiming to change my users’ behaviors which is impossible to test if any of my design works with one time test. It also makes me procrastinated a lot…So I go back to reorganize my ideations and think about the features of my product. Here is what I am thinking: 

Features:

1. Tracking food/meal: Eat on time; eat good food; eat good amount of food (Learning users habits/ behaviors/ preferences/ daily routine and then provide personalized experience)
2. Provide tasks as suggestions: Nearby healthy food choices; drink enough water; eat certain food that is lacking from user’s daily meals (Help users to learn what healthier choices are for eating)
3. Award: Badges based on achievements; One time godmode (defeat a fall off action); Discount on grocery (Encourage user to follow the routine and keep them engaged)
4. Emotional connection: Cultivate your gourd; gourd will change its emotion based on the user's eating behavior (Keep users emotionally connect to the creature that represents themselves)
5. Community: Raking with friends; “Battles” (Competition between friends can help increase user engagement 

Prototype Focus:

By this point (within this first milestone timeframe), I want to focus on how the emotional connection plays the role in changing my users’ behavior, and experimenting what would work when the users fall off the healthy track.

Area of Weakness

By this point (within this first milestone timeframe), I want to focus on how the emotional connection plays the role in changing my users’ behavior, and experimenting what would work when the users fall off the healthy track.

Here is my Prototype idea:

By this point (within this first milestone timeframe), I want to focus on how the emotional connection plays the role in changing my users’ behavior, and experimenting what would work when the users fall off the healthy track.

Prototype Sketch

1. Briefly interview testers about their daily routine, eating preference, and health goal for the following couple days

2. Ask testers to draw a random shape (it will be their eating companion)

a. Weekly: the beginning of the week

b. Daily: in the morning

3. Send reminders for meals with their elfin in different emotion

e.g. hungry; hangry; starving; feels too full

4. Ask testers to send their meals

a. Photos

b. Text

c. Food delivery screen shot

5. Their elfin will act differently based on their meals

6. They will collect different energy drops based on what they eat

7. By the end of the day, the tester will grow a flower which can unlock a flower collection, and get a cheer up sentence 

Next Step

+ Research on habit building
+ Refine competitor analysis (add habit builder competitors)
+ Refine user journey map

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