Nutra
YEAR
2025
TIMELINE
1 month
TOOLS
Figma
Play
PLATFORM
iOS
INDUSTRY
Healthtech
TEAM
Self-initiated
OVERVIEW
Nutra empowers people to take control of their food anxiety through mindfulness and self-reflection.
My own healthy journey inspired the creation of this app. I didn't design it to solve eating disorders, but rather to be an aid to those experiencing a fractured relationship with food, specifically people who have an obsession with healthy eating (orthorexia).
INSPIRATION
From 2021 to 2024, I took over 2500+ photos of everything I ate.
I didn't do it for the 'gram. I did it because I had a broken relationship with what I was eating. It made me wonder, how might I create an intervention, a more in-your-back-pocket form of nutritional care?
RESEARCH
Where have users struggled in their relationship with food?
I started by interviewing 8 users who've experienced a fractured relationship with food. I wanted actionable next steps to take. When synthesizing the research, I found a few key insights.
Users didn't have a reliable way to track or reflect on the foods that they ate.
A battle with disordered eating is as mental as it is physical for many.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Creating strong anchor points to ground decision-making.
Establish trust to encourage a safe space for introspection.
Make the product easy to parse, clear and concise for this specific demographic.
Leverage user inputs (sensitive information) to help create value in return.
SCOPE
Narrowing down and defining what could (realistically) be built.
Tackling eating disorders is both a sensitive and large project scope, which led to me having to find a more concentrated approach. The research suggested to focus on a solution geared towards unhealthy mindsets about food.
I kept this project limited to iOS and sought to design as if they were to be developed. I had to make sure that I considered different use cases, along with how each design decision would be able to strike the sweet spot between business and user. The value and efficacy of this product would be measured through usability testing to gauge ease of use.
IDEATION
Creating a unique product.
Disordered eating hasn't exponentiated in popularity the same way that mental health has, resulting in less apps aiding in recovery. How might I help users slow down and be more mindful with their food?
Incentivize users to journal and confront their challenges with food anxiety, identifying patterns along the way.
Do not provide medical advice, but keep it light-hearted and actionable through simple exercises.
TESTING
Rooting design decisions in data.
I conducted both moderated and unmoderated testing with 8 users. I wanted to gauge their experience with logging a meal entry and better understand any gap or frustrations in the process.
5 out of 8 users preferred to have a more entry-driven homepage rather than a detailed, information-dense one.
6 out of 8 users felt that the initial meal check-in screen presented too much information to process what to do.
DESIGN DECISIONS
Creating a more entry-driven homepage over information-dense one.
A central theme of my interviewees and those with disordered eating is how easy it is to feel overwhelmed. This served as a north star behind how I made certain decisions. The product had to feel clear, be low-friction and scalable.
IMG
Incentivizing an entry from the homescreen
Opting for positive friction in meal-entries.
I was looking for the meal check in flow to be digestible for users. I originally had a singular, centralized screen where users could input information through pills.
However, I sought additional feedback from users, along with other designers and mentors, leading me to break this down into multiple screens. Although it increases the total interaction cost, it also reduces the ease of feeling overwhelmed for this target audience, which I felt was an appropriate trade-off.
IMG
Creating a new food-journal entry
Designing with scale in mind.
In order for users to tag who they were with for their meal, I ideated a few different solutions. I sought out feedback regarding scalability as I was building from scratch. Ideas included pills and pagination with a simple grid, though I opted for a list that would scale best.
IMG
Options for tagging friends in an entry
FEATURE 01
Easing the journey through mindfulness and introspection.
Users cited facing a lack of introspection in thinking about what they ate. Food is our fuel and the most human experience that we all partake in, but how many of our meals are we actually mindful about?
The impetus for this feature was to create a simple way for users to feel more intentional about what they were eating. It would be a way to track not just what they ate, but how it made them feel and more.
VIDEO
Logging a meal entry
ADAPTING TO USERS
Connecting the dots for users.
With this app, users are inputting information that is rather sensitive. I really wanted to connect the dots visually and transparently for these users to indicate a return on their investment. A lot of apps store user information, but leveraging it helps to create a more individualized experience that helps users in return.
IMG
Consideration 1: Enabling photo identification for uploading meals
IMG
Consideration 2: Allowing for location tracking in meal check ins
FEATURE 02
Food is holistic by nature, and an objective lens helps to see why.
A common theme amongst my interviewees (and myself) was that we tended to view food as being "all good" or "all bad". Salads are good for you, fried food is terrible, and so on. This insight was the impetus to help users reframe this negative approach into digestible exercises and challenge their own views.
VIDEO
Prompting an entry creation after reflection
IMG
Reframing food beliefs
IMG
Suggested exercise based off user input of feeling anxious
TESTING... AGAIN
Sharpening the experience.
After iterations, I conducted a second round of testing where I asked users to complete the same task of logging a food entry. I wanted to better understand their human condition — here's what some said:
7 out of 8 users liked the breakdown of steps for the meal check in flow.
All 8 users spoke positively about the food exercises feature and found it helpful.
CONCLUSION - WHY THIS MATTERS
Providing an intermediate solution to those with disordered eating.
As the core features of the product were in strong shape, I was ready to hand off this project and have it be developed. Based off of the user pain points, I initially set out for Nutra to provide a reliable way to track and reflect on the types of foods that people ate, which was being achieved. It wasn't designed to be a substitute for professional medical advice, but rather as an intermediate solution to those with disordered eating by making food less anxiety-inducing.
A fractured relationship with food manifests its way into our everyday lives. Many people are operating within this grey area where they have a poor relationship with food but have never gotten it checked out professionally. Nutra serves as an ode to those people and myself.