Let's look at the Project Overview

The project aimed to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on people's habits pertaining to food and the effects of this new “normalcy“ on their lives.

Project Mandate was to…

…research how people changed their eating habits, food storage, food disposal, health maintenance, kitchen design, and refrigerator usage during Covid-19 in order to accommodate the changes in their schedules and to find out if there’s any room for improvement or a gap to help them with their meal routines.

What did we do?

In order for us to understand what were dunking into and get us going, we prepared ourselves by the following.

  • We recruited 2 participants for a virtual session to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their food habits and changes in their work schedule and observe the process of preparing a meal from picking recipes & sourcing ingredients to cooking and cleaning after.

  • Identifying the need:

    The COVID-19 pandemic represented a massive impact on human health, causing sudden lifestyle changes, through social distancing and isolation at home, with social, and economic consequences and dietary habits.


    Evaluating the Impact:

    Due to the sudden changes, how has it impacted the ways in which people work and spend their time? What are the changes in their meal schedule? Has the meal portion, exercise frequency, or weight been affected?

  • Cooking Frequency - no take outs

    Food Quality - Online Food Shopping

    Food Quantity - Family

    Food Wastage - Overstocking

    Food Insecurity - Limited availability

    Weight Gain - Work from home

    Kitchen size and storage - Redesigning

    Frequency of working out - Reduced due to lockdown

    Sleeping hours - Increased

    Mental Health - Stress Eating

    Drinking and Smoking - Increased

Summary of Findings

Impact of COVID 19

Participants reported that due to the changes in the social environment, they have been staying more indoors and that has impacted the way they procure food and how often they eat out.

Changes due to work schedule

Participants have been working from home and have been more occupied with their job leaving them less time to buy groceries, cook meal and then clean and store after.

Resulting Health Concerns

They have increasingly started resorting to quick bites and unhealthy food options resulting in weight gain and other health concerns.

Challenges

Meal & Grocery Planner

Food Options Near Office

Storage Limitations

Follows Quantified Diet Plan

Insights

Needs a variety of healthy food options with a minimum commute from the office.

Plan the meal and grocery list for every week.

Plans the list of items for groceries every week as per the availability of storage space.

An easy calorie tracking method while cooking.

Opportunities

❝How might we propose a solution for storing the groceries for someone who shares kitchen space with many other people to store more items in a limited shared storage space in a kitchen?

❝How might we make the process of calorie tracking into a credit-earning game for a diet-conscious working individual to help him maintain their weight?

❝How might we help with finding good restaurants close to the office for a busy working individual to accommodate commuting and eating in a limited time frame?

❝How might we reduce the mess created during cooking for people who cook every day to help reduce the amount of time spent cleaning after cooking and eating?

Recommendations

Basic

Healthy, quick & budget-friendly food delivery service near offices

Variety of healthy and budget-friendly food trucks coming to offices

Intermediate

A service that provides packaged food ingredients for meals/week.

A recipe book/manual/App which gives customizable recipe options.

Advanced

A smart interface that gives the calorie distribution for custom recipes.

A gamified reward system to keep track of calorie intake in a day.

Field Research

User Interview

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