FoodPass
Dietary Preferences made Inclusive
For my master thesis, I explored the intersection of food and health. My research first led me to food intolerances, then to dietary preferences and restrictions, and finally to communication and dietary inclusiveness.
The project resulted in the design of FoodPass, a platform to collect and share dietary preferences, to help find and organize food for everyone.
PROJECT
Master’s Thesis
TIMELINE
Spring 2021
5 months
SUPERVISOR
TYPE OF WORK
Design Research
Service Design
UX Design
The Problem
“I’m afraid to go over for dinner, because I don’t want to burden people with my dietary requirements. I either make the situation complicated, or I feel sick for days after. I’d rather just avoid the whole thing.”We tend to assume most people eat everything, but this is far from true. Dietary diversity is an important concept that is often overlooked. Culture, allergies and intolerances, ethics and eating goals all influence what we eat, and how we make choices around food.
When we’re in control, it’s easy to make our preferences work. The friction starts when we want to stick to our choices in social settings, like birthday parties, Christmas dinners and office lunches, or when we need to find suitable food from food services.
People with dietary restrictions tend to feel like they stand out from the crowd, or feel like they’re a burden to their hosts. On the other hand, hosts would like to help out, but they’re not sure how. And since we don’t have a social protocol around this topic, we need to start the conversation from scratch every time, over and over again.
Meanwhile, our food services are overdue for a systemic update. Finding suitable food shouldn’t require a continuous hunt through ingredient lists. We have the technology to show correct and personal recommendations, we just don’t have a way to provide the required information.
The Process
Research Methods
The research of this project was a combination of desk- and design research. I wanted to understand the medical literature to support the information I found through surveys, interviews, and a codesign workshop.
Through the literature, I learned about biological mechanisms, mitigations and treatments for food intolerances. My research participants taught me about the experience of living with dietary restrictions and shared the challenges they faced.
The design research for this project consisted of a survey, interviews with people with dietaryrestrictions, industry professionals, and a codesign workshop, where I invited four participants with different backgrounds to give feedback on the design process.
Finetuning the Problem Space
“The challenges never really go away, you just get used to dealing with them.”My research started with food intolerances. Based on my interview I created a patient journey with four stages: the recognition that health complaints are related to food, the diagnosis of an intolerance, the integration of a new diet and lifestyle, and the long-term management of the intolerance.
I was drawn to the complexity of the final stage. While people have finished their medical journey of diagnosis and intervention, the social challenges and inconveniences of managing their food intolerances never really go away.
I also realized these challenges apply to anyone with dietary restrictions, not just food intolerances. This led to expand the scope of my research from food intolerances to dietary restrictions and preferences.
Inclusiveness through Communication
I then focused on the communication around dietary choices. People repeatedly told me they feel uncomfortable asking their hosts for special treatment. Dietary requirements are an exception, communicated as a special need, which in turn leads to anxiety and avoidance. This needed to change.
I set out to rethink how we organize food. This is where the concept of dietary inclusiveness comes in.
Exclusive Planning
We tend to plan food with the assumption that most people eat everything. We then assign a special status to those with dietary preferences, making them feel excluded from the group.
Inclusive Planning
Instead, we might invite everyone to share their dietary preferences. This information can then be used to organize food options for everyone. It flips the social dynamic from exclusivity, to inclusiviness for all involved.
Based on these insights, I defined my goal for the design phase of the project as creating a platform that enables easy and inclusive communication about dietary preferences.
The Solution
Based on the design brief that I developed in the research phase, I wanted to design a platform that would help people communicate about their dietary preferences. This resulted in the design of FoodPass.
FoodPass is a service platform that stores people’s preferences in a food profile, which can then be used for social sharing, or to customize other online platforms. Here’s a look at the core features.
Create your own Food Profile
Each user creates their own food profile, which lists all the food types they “exclude” or “avoid”. Users can get as detailed as they want, down to the exact ingredient.
Flexible Sharing
Food profiles can be shared with other people or with service platforms. With each connection, users can choose which preferences to share, so they can customize what they communicate for each occasion.
Plan Food for Everyone
Through Events, hosts can explicitly invite their guests to share their dietary preferences. This makes participants feel included, and helps food organizers plan food for everyone. FoodPass automatically creates a clear overview.
Personalized Services
FoodPass enables a new range of personalization options for service platforms. By simply linking accounts, information from Food Profiles can be used to create custom filters, show indicators for menu items, or hide unwanted items from search results.
Smart Integrations
FoodPass’ real superpower is its ability to integrate into existing services. From browser extensions to social media platforms and supermarket websites, any platform can utilize information from FoodPass to improve the services they offer.
FoodPass as a browser extension, checking a recipe on a website
Create your own filters for your groceries
FoodPass seamlessly integrates with Facebook events
Designing an Ecosystem
From the start, FoodPass was designed to be bigger than its own app and website. Instead, I envisioned it as a service platform, with third-party integrations and a growing ecosystem. This approach was essential to achieve the goals I set for FoodPass:
Adaptable and Relevant
If FoodPass should work in different settings, it should match the tone of each situation. A spontaneous dinner with friends, an office lunch and a large conference require different organizational styles and different tools.
Available Everywhere
To create an effective ecosystem, FoodPass should be widely available and enable continuity between platforms. By ensuring easy integration through an open API, any platform can quickly integrate FoodPass as a service.
All Things Food
There are many use cases for FoodPass, with a lot of unexplored potential. By giving free reign to other teams, FoodPass has the opportunity to become the go-to platform for all things food.
System Maps and User Journeys
To visualize the role and functionalities of FoodPass as a platform, I created a schematic map of the ecosystem. I also visualized various user journeys to show the needs of different users, their interactions with FoodPass, and how FoodPass interacts with external services.
Download the full resolution files at the bottom of the page!
A schematic view of FoodPass as a service platform.
One of the user journeys created for this project.
Lessons Learned
Enjoy being Lost
As the biggest solo project so far, this thesis made me feel completely lost almost all of the time. I had to learn (once again) to feel comfortable with not knowing the way forward. While you might not be able to force the answers to reveal themselves, you can always stumble upon them by just continuing the work.
People-First Research
I started this project with a deep-dive into academic literature, and I got caught up with mapping out all the biological details. But I only found my design challenge -and the solution- when I started listening to what people told me. In the end, design is at its best when it’s social and empathic.