Healthy Eating Choices
A user research project that focused on helping students make healthier choices when eating on campus
During a ten week class on field research I learned how to observe, interview, and survey participants to answer a design question.
The Project Overview
DESIGN QUESTION: How can we help students make healthy eating choices when dining on campus?
WHEN: Researched in the spring of 2018 for 10 weeks
WHO: Students who buy and eat food on campus
WHY: Students struggle to eat healthy while on campus due to many factors including information presented, wait time, and price
WHAT: Provided design recommendations based on the observations, interviews, and surveys
HOW: Scroll down to see more information!
Field Study Plan
This part of the project consisted of creating a goal and looking at how students are currently impacted by the food presented on campuses. After understanding what others have researched I was able to create questions that will allow me to focus on aspects that have been looked into deeply. I also created a overall session logic and explained how I was going to collect data during the observations.
Field Study Report
Using the data I collected during the three 30 minute observations I was able to analyze the data. The way I analyzed the data is by grouping similar observations and then creating a affinity diagram. I was then able to pick the most important topics and create recommendations around that. By also using the analysis I was able to refine the research questions for the next step of the research.
Interview Plan
Interview Questions Used:
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What is you most recent experience with buying and eating food on campus?
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When buying food what do you take into consideration?
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How do you for the food on campus?
Based on the refined research questions, I then created interview questions. This was a semi-structured interview. Three people were interviewed each for 30 minutes. During this I learned how not to lead the interview questions and how to take notes during the interview.
Interview Top Line Report
After interviewing the participants, I coded the notes taken during the interview and the transcription of the interview. Using the codes I created an affinity diagram to create groupings. Based on the groupings I was able to pick the most noted and created recommendations. I was also able to refine the research questions once again for the next step of the research.
Survey Plan
Based on the research question I created survey questions. These questions were multiple choice, ratings, rankings, and open ended. There were a total of 10 questions and before sending out the questions on a google form, I needed to plan how I was going to analyze the questions. This helped me know if the questions sent out were going to answer the research questions and overall design question.
Survey Presentation
Using the survey answers from 20 participants, I analyzed the data. In order to analyze the data I used my notes from the last paper. In order to create the graphs I used excel. Using the graphs I gave recommendations and created a 10 minute presentation.
Final Report
After the observations, interviews, and surveys I created a final report where I analyzed all of the results and created recommendations. For the analysis I did triangulation of all the results from the observation, interview, and survey study. This meant I compared the results and grouped them together to create a final three results for the overall study. Using these recommendation I created recommendations. They were ordered in importance and how easy it was to implement the recommendations.
The final recommendations after all of the research is:
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Have information about dietary restrictions, allergy restrictions, break down of what is in the food, and nutrition including sugar and sodium. This should be online, on the menus, and possibly handouts
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include more side options on menus. This can include fresh fruits, vegetables, pretzels with hummus, and other smaller sides. This can be an option along with fries and tater tots, but it needs to be the same price as this or cheaper.
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Monthly emails should be sent out based on what HFS is doing at the moment. They can include what places are successful at the moment, future plans, and surveys asking what students want and how they feel.