LIFANA – User-Centered Design of a Personalized Meal Recommender App for the Elderly

The LIFANA application provided personalized meal plans that helped users to prevent undernutrition or overweight and followed WHO recommendations regarding caloric intake based on height, weight, gender and age as well as measured physical activity. The weekly meal plans maintained a balance between e.g fish and meat and plantbased dishes, ingredient variety, and macronutrients, and considered individual food restrictions. The LIFANA solution distinguishes itself from conventional food logging applications by providing users with seamless access to personalized meal plans that account for factors such as food restrictions, ingredient variety, macronutrient balance, and dietary preferences. The project implemented a User-Centered Design (UCD) process with two iterative cycles of three phases: i) understanding the needs of the target group, ii) conceptualizing, and iii) testing. To facilitate understanding of the user’s needs, 34 stakeholders (seniors aged 65+, health professionals, and informal caregivers) participated in focus groups and co-creation workshops in The Netherlands (NL), Portugal (PT), and Switzerland (CH). The insights gathered from these sessions informed the creation of 7 personas and related scenarios, offering our developers a better understanding of the target users and their needs, considering factors such as age, gender, education, disabilities, and food preferences. Further, we added examples of typical meals for the age group in NL and PT. In the conceptualization phase, the functional requirements for the LIFANA solution were defined, and a first prototype was implemented based on the personas defined in the first phase. The testing phase started with usability evaluation studies to validate that seniors can solve typical tasks. After successful request of ethical approval from the responsible national authorities, the LIFANA solution was then tested in a first round of short field trials in PT and NL. The feedback from the trials was used in a second iteration of the process to refine the requirements and develop a second prototype, which was then tested again in larger, long-term field trials in PT (53 participants, 14 months) and NL (107 participants, 3 months).