Think Salt

Think salt app aims to help people who have trouble controlling their sodium intake. This app helps high BP patients with information about what kind of food they can consume and how much sodium they can take daily.

Process Deck View Prototype
My Role Time Category Tools & Methods
UX Designer 2 months Mobile App User Interviews, Design Thinking, Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Miro, Google Meet

Background

  • Homo sapiens have taken things to the next level by growing, preparing, flavoring, and cooking our food in weird and beautiful ways not seen anywhere else in the animal kingdom.
  • This is because the five basic tastes - sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami—are messages that tell us something about what we put into our mouth, so we can decide whether it should be eaten.

    • Saltiness

    Sodium plays a critical role in the health of any mammal because it regulates ion and water homeostasis in the body. And, of course, the taste marker for sodium is “salty.” The fact that saltiness is enjoyed in small quantities but not in large amounts might be related to its role in the body—overeating salt at once can be dangerous, so our body responds by rejecting extremely high salty solutions. In fact, according to WHO, most people consume too much salt. Some diseases are caused by high sodium consumption, which is unhealthy.

    Features

    Recipes

    They are low in sodium but high in flavor.

    Shopping List

    Check the market and create shopping lists that have low salt.

    Sodium Tracker

    Monitor your salt intake daily.

    Tips

    Get daily tips for living a healthier, less salty lifestyle.

    Learn More

    Learn more about required salt intake per day and the effects of salt on the human body.

    Inbuilt Weighing Scale

    Easily measure salt wherever you are.

    Design Process

    I chose to follow the design thinking methodology for this project. It helped me untangle ambiguity, validate ideas, and structure complex problems. The process includes gathering insights about the users, prototyping ideas, and validating them.

    Show me the final designs!

    Empathize

    To understand people's needs to control sodium, I interviewed some targeted people. The results show a need to control sodium intake, but the current approach is often cumbersome and unpleasant.


    Empathy maps


    Cone of Possibility Technique

    The Cone of Possibilities is a tool that is typically used in foresight and future studies. It helps in depicting the idea that there are many future possibilities. It's an easy way of visualizing how we can examine many different futures to understand how to make better decisions in the present. There are four parts to the cone of possibilities. The apex is today. Our past stretches out behind us, further to the left. The most oversized cone represents all potential future options, everything that could happen.



    Using the empathy maps drawn after research, I created a user persona of a targeted user. I also used the Cone of Possibility technique to flesh out more users.


    Fleshed out user persona

    I created a user persona using the qualitative data collected from the user research.

    "Many people do not realize that they consume too much sodium than the allowed daily intake. It's always good to read food labels before consuming. Also, try to cook at home because one will have control over sodium consumption."

    - Dr. Egan

    Define

    The first step was to gather user research which I completed using empathy maps, and I created a handy user persona from that. Max Warren is a businessman who aims to lead a healthier lifestyle with his family by controlling his salt intake.

    User Story

    I learned that each user story includes a hero, a goal, and a conflict. Using that formula and the research I collected from the user persona, Max Warren, and I framed their user story. By identifying pain points for the user with the user story, I will be able to create a design tailored to users’ needs. The result is a great user experience.


    User Journey map

    Now, let's walk through the steps for the user journey for Max Warren's journey with the Think Salt app. Finally, I also included opportunities for improvement. What are some ways that I can solve an issue or make a task more straightforward for the user? For example, I discovered an opportunity for improvement that I found in other sodium tracker apps. Those apps used a laborious process for the salt track.


    Problem Statement

    The human body needs a small quantity of salt to function, but most consume too much sodium. High sodium consumption can raise blood pressure, a significant risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Most of my family members suffer from high blood pressure, and heart issue runs in our genetics because of high salt intake. WHO says that we take too much sodium every day, so we all need a low sodium healthy diet.

    Ideate

    I generated ideas using the How Might We framework to help me generate many ideas I can choose from to help solve users’ problems. The goal of this activity is to come up with many possible design ideas. Some will be usable, and some won’t, but this process gave me a better idea of what might work.


    Generating ideas using How Might We questions

    I took the user’s pain points learned from the user research studies. Then I used this list from the Stanford d.school to begin generating ideas by asking how we might: Amp up the good. Change a status quo? Break the point-of-view into pieces.


    Sitemap

    Sitemaps help outline the pages of the app you need to design and can help you spot necessary pages that you’ve forgotten to include, need to remove, or need to combine. A hierarchical sitemap outlines the relationship between pages in order of importance.


    Prototype

    P&P Wireframes


    Component Library



    Color Style

    • A significant shift has happened in recent years in how we manage health. Personal wellness apps augment consumer demand as they help people track their vital information and help them stay motivated.
    • So it's essential to choose colors that create a joyful, cheerful, playful, and relaxed vibe. Hence, I will predominantly use a purple shade in my Think Salt personal wellness app.
    • Purple denotes ambition and devotion, which goes well with the mindset to track and improve health. Pink gives out the message of playfulness and kindness. This combination promotes a balance of energies.

    Font Style

    • I am using Montserrat font for the Think Salt app. It is classified as a sans serif with 18 styles and nine weights.
    • Accessibility
      I chose this font because it comes under “sans serif” fonts. A serif is a bit decorative line that is found on some fonts. However, some people find it difficult to read serif fonts because they distract the eyes and the brain from the overall shape of the letter. Sans serif” means “without the decorative line.”
    • Mood and Attitude
      This particular font gives a contemporary feel while still practical for everyday use. Thus, Montserrat typeface is a good choice because the Think Salt app will be used daily. It also provides a clean and modern look to the website and mobile screens. I wanted the think salt app to follow a minimalistic design. What I mean by minimalistic design is to give priority to the essentials. The idea behind choosing this font was to avoid excess ornamentation to achieve a pure form of elegance. It outputs clean lines, and they are wide. This spacing provides a clean and tidy look which is also modern. Since it's wide, it will also help older people scan content.

    Components





    Wireframes and Wireflows


    Splash Screen Design

    The main character illustration of the Think Salt app is the brain. My idea for the splash screen was to have an image of a cartoon brain dancing in joy. This portrays the effect this app would have on people, which depicts a healthier and more energetic lifestyle.


    Final Designs


    Interactive Prototype

    Takeaways

    Think Salt helped me understand how tough it can be to know nothing about the project's field. For example, I had very little knowledge about Salt and the kind of implications it causes to the human body, which became tricky when designing the first few screens. So, instead of making blind assumptions, I did a lot of internet research about the implications of Salt. As a result, I could pull many user-researched data online that showed the inconsistencies in the existing solutions. This made me realize just how important it is to know about the app you are developing to create a well-rounded user experience.