Veggie Hero: Informatics Game for Kids
Summary
"Veggie Hero" is a mobile application for kids (8-12yrs old) to track and increase their fruit and vegetable consumption. We incorporated a game dynamics to increase engagement and encourage compliance.
Ideation
Tracking food proved to be more complex than we had anticipated. Once we had explored and prototyped several concepts, we narrowed our focus on increasing fruit and vegetable consumption for kids.
Our team felt incorporating game dynamics into our application would make it more engaging for children. During a brainstorming session with one of my teammates, we came up with the concept of a "Veggie Hero". I outlined my ideas around a "vegetar" and she wrote the backstory around the game and we pitched it to our teammates. Our goal was to motivate children to eat healthier so they could earn points (or "beans") that would enhance the ability of the "Veggie Hero" to fight the "Miserable Munchies". In this way, the "avatar's" power is a reflection of the nutritional power of the food being tracked by the user. Because a primary goal was to increase fruit and veggie consumption, we also took care to incorporate behavior change principles within our application. During this project, I played an instrumental role in leading our working sessions and designing the game architecture (PDF sample). My whiteboard and notebook sketches were converted into initial wireframes by my teammate.
User Research and Feedback
To learn more about our target audience, I researched information about current initiatives and games that focused on healthy eating for kids to share with my team. I also recruited and interviewed an 8 year-old girl and her mother to gain insight into a family's routine and a child's environment as it pertains to food. During the interview, I was also able to get feedback on wireframes created by my teammates and the different states of the avatar that I had designed. Her feedback and ideas gave us confidence to move forward with the next iteration of our design ideas.Mobile Screen Design and Illustrations
In preparation for turning our hi-fi mockups into a mobile prototype, I created my illustrations, wireframes, and interface designs in Flash and Fireworks.
