Vday: AI Ingredient Checker for Vegetarians

DURATION

6 Months

MY ROLE

End to end UX/UI Design and Deployment

  • UX research (Information Architecture, Video Ethnography, Contextual Inquiry, In-depth interview, Affinity Diagram, Thematic Coding)

  • UI Design, Rapid Prototyping

  • Participant Recruitment

  • Prototyping and Web Deployment

RESULTS

  • Published in Journal of the HCI Society Korea

  • Deployed as an Web Service

Overall Process

We divided the study into three repetition of diverging and converging phases.

We focused on rapidly developing a minimum viable prototype and engaging with real users to rigorously validate our hypothesis.

Introduction

Backgrounds

A lack of vegetarian food labeling and information resources despite the growing number of vegetarian consumers.

Painpoints

The Uncomfortable Grocery Shopping Experience for Vegetarians

Goal

Solutions

  • Vegetarians

  • 20s and 30s

  • Female

Target User Segment

Rapid Prototyping

Prototype Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

1. Take a Photo of Ingredient Label

2. Ingredient Detection Result

3. Save the Result Information

Vday detected oysters, shrimp, and clams, classifying the food as Pesco Vegetarian.

Result Informations Contained

  • Full List of Ingredients

  • Extracted Animal-Based Ingredients

  • Vegetarian Type Compatibility

Prototype Testing

Phase 3:

Research Design, subject Recruitment, Prototype Testing, Interviews, Qualitative Data Analysis, Insight Extraction

User Research Objective

Participants

Methodologies

Video Ethnography

Contextual Inquiry

In-depth Interview

Thematic Coding

Survey

Affinity Diagram

Video Ethnography Test

A video ethnography test was used to closely observe how target users interact with the service and to evaluate its usability in a real-world supermarket setting

Location: Large supermarket chain in Seoul
Duration: 20-30 min

User Task Scenario

Test Result

3 Things that User Wanted
When Using an app in Grocery Store

👉

Interviews

1. Contextual Inquiry

Contextual inquiries were asked during ethnography test to investigate user’s motivation, desire and behavior.

2. Indepth Interview

After the video ethnography test ended as well as contextual inquiry a 30 minute in-depth interview was conducted

Affinity Diagram

Interview responses were grouped into thematic categories using an affinity diagram to uncover key insights.

👉

4 Insights from Interviews

Identify areas for improvement

1. Redesign Camera Scanning

Insights:
The shopping environment where hands are used a lot, concise and intuitive delivery of information is important.

User Quotes:

(P4) It would be great if it could be accessed instantly, like scanning a QR code in the default camera app.

(P2) I wish it could scan automatically without taking a photo.

Case Study:
Exploring Camera Interface Applications

By improving the two things below,
the number of running tabs will be reduced from 3 to 1!

  1. Implements Bounding Box Detection to automatically recognize and extract the ingredient label area.

  2. Automatically detects and highlights animal-derived ingredient names on the image.

AS IS

TO BE

2. Vegan Ingredient Wikipedia is needed

Curious about the ingredients? Click on any ingredient to instantly view detailed information!

  • Vegan Wikipedia strengthens the vegetarian community by helping users understand complex ingredients and make confident choices.

I want to try different foods, but I often struggle to identify what’s vegan or pescatarian, so I end up avoiding them.

As a vegetarian, I tend to stick to familiar foods. A sharing feature would help me discover and try new options.

Expanding the community feature for sharing vegetarian food information would create a stronger sense of belonging and connection.

  • Seven out of nine participants expressed the need for detailed information on ingredients that are difficult to identify as animal-based. (P1, P2, P3, P5, P6, P7, P8)

3. Community features based on saved food information

Share the food information you saved and see what other vegetarians are buying! Discover new vegetarian foods and communicate in the comments.

User Quotes:

Four out of nine participants expressed interest in viewing other users' archived records. They wanted to explore the food archives of users with the same vegetarian type to discover new plant-based options and expand their meal variety.

Quotes from the HCI Journal reviewers

Reviewer A

This study presents a creative and valuable contribution with significant potential. Its applicability could extend beyond vegetarians to individuals with dietary restrictions due to allergies or religious beliefs.

“

"

Reviewer B

This research provides a well-
articulated exploration of how vegetarians navigate food choices during grocery shopping, shedding light on their decision- processes and underlying motivations.

“

"

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