Home / Making Nutrition accessible to Indian families using AI
Making nutrition accessible to Indian families using AI
My role
UI/UX Designer - Lead team
Team
3 UI/UX Designers
Project duration
18 Hrs to submit and present
Jury feedback
Saurabh Gupta
Co founder, ZEUX
Good problem understanding and presentation.
loved the comparison feature to figure cheaper local alternatives for expensive super foods & Slick visual design
We scored
39/50 - Second in batch
🌟
Designathon
“What made Friends Of Figma Wireframed 2025 especially significant was its jury a panel of some of India's most respected design leaders.”
Problem statement
💡 Context:
Families often struggle to plan affordable, nutritious meals. Online recipes promote expensive, imported ingredients that aren’t practical for most households. A digital tool could make healthy eating both local and cost-effective”
🎯 Challenge:
How might we design a mobile-first nutrition app that helps families track affordable, balanced meals based on local foods rather than expensive alternatives?
🌍 Why It Matters:
Helping families make smarter food choices improves health outcomes, reduces monthly expenses, and supports local food ecosystems.
Our process
Research
Understand & define problems
Design - Iterate
Present
Part 1 : Research
6 People interviewed Agenda : Understand nutrition in Indian families
Their thought about nutrition ?
🥗
Do their family take nutrition seriously ?
👪
How nutrition worked in their family ?
👪
Their nutritional & food habits
🍽️
Do they use digital platform for nutrition ?
📱
Nutrition is important in family, but its not strictly followed. Depends on health conditions.
01
Nutrition lingo is like
Food for diabetes
Food to control cholesterol
Vitamin c is good for immunity
02
One person cooks after asking the family what to eat for breakfast or dinner, and then prepares the same food for all members.
03
04
Mom use google or YouTube or ask people to find recipes for health benefits & modify them according to needs
05
Time consuming process & nutritional food is fancy & no desi options found easily, so not taken care much
Interview responses summarized
Part 2 : Insights & define problem
Research insights
One person cooks in family & same diet is followed by everyone
Family understand what is good for heart , cholesterol, sugar patient ? Rather than “Protein & calories”
Family member uses internet, YouTube and what's app to find & curate recipes making it time consuming
Indians have glamorised nutrition & thinks its expensive & don't take nutrition seriously.
01
User Persona - Based on research insight we decided to design for house wife or mom who cooks
Riya Sharma
Female, 38 Yrs
👩🏻 Housewife
📱 Tech Comfort : Moderate
Riya is house wife who looks after planning food for family. She understands that nutrition is important but struggles to apply healthy practices as finding & curating recipes is time consuming &difficult to validate what is truly healthy.
🎯
Goals
Curate & cook healthy meals suitable for family health & dietary preference
💭
Motivation
To make sure family is fit, healthy & happy
Current behaviours
Chooses foods based on health conditions awareness (e.g., cholesterol, sugar)
Uses YouTube and Google to search recipes
Also use AI like Chat GPT to find nutrition facts and foods
Shares and receives recipes via WhatsApp
Follows familiar cooking habits
Pain point 1
Don't understand nutrition, don't know if food choices are correct
Pain point 2
Time consuming to find & curate, ends up quitting by making small changes to meal
Pain point 3
Most of the time found food choices which are expensive & cant afford. Don't know local alternatives.
How might we simplify meal planning for dietary and health needs, enabling users to make informed nutritional choices and cook healthier meals for their families?
How might we educate families to make nutritious food choices that are affordable and accessible?
Solution
How might we simplify meal planning for dietary and health needs, enabling users to make informed nutritional choices and cook healthier meals for their families?
Research insight :
Indian families understand nutritional food mainly through perceived health benefits or popular market trends.
They rely on Google, YouTube, and WhatsApp groups to discover and curate recipes based on local food preferences.
Pain point : Time consuming , Confusing , don't know if food choices are correct & how those choices contribute to overall health.
Opportunity : Design a solution that helps users discover, customize, and adapt recipes based on local preferences and nutritional needs, while providing clear insights into the health benefits of each food choice.
Solution 1 : We decided to tap into common behaviour of searching & asking nature of user to create ai chat that help user generate recipe based on their requirements
01
Home screen - Helps curating recipe
02
Query result - Helps customizing recipe
03
Modify result - Helps customising recipe
04
View recipe - Helps with nutrition clarity
In this solution home screen mainly supported users who already knew what they wanted & budget meals do not motivation to return, this created high cognitive load as users were unsure of what to do next.
Iteration 2 : Reduce cognitive load by guiding user to explore and curate recipe
We introduced another entry point to reduce cognitive load, helping users understand where to go next after opening the app. This mirrors real-world decision-making by allowing users to explore recipes by meal type (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and filter by nutritional and health preferences.
Impact : Reduced time, frustration & made it easy to curate nutritional meal. With this solution we are making sure to provide clarity on food choices with nutritional information & how it benefits user
After finding recipes they can customize recipe by typing requirements to alter to their preferences.
Impact : This allowed user to customize recipe to their liking and preferences without having to use multiple sources like YouTube & internet. Reduced time drastically & no confusion when it comes to food choices.
Solution 2 : How might we educate families to make nutritious food choices that are affordable and accessible ?
Insights :
Indians have glamorised nutrition & thinks its expensive & don't take nutrition seriously.
Observation :
Family think nutrition is expensive & you need to follow diet & eat expensive food like avocado, kale salad, quinoa etc. Resulting in not taking it seriously.
Opportunity :
A feature in app to educate family with local alternative for expensive nutrition food & help them get interested in nutrition
Impact : This will help educate user & get rid of misconception that healthy food is expensive. They can view expensive food understand its nutrition & find budget alternative. This will peak their interest in nutrition to try & explore creating new recipes
Conclusion