Our Design Process

1. Our Problem Space

The FoodWise problem space centers on how we can use technology to support and educate individuals in eating disorder recovery—helping them rebuild self-trust, mindfulness, and healthy eating patterns through empathetic, educational, and reflective digital design, rather than surveillance or self-punishment.

We met JH a college senior from Korea, who has a history of bulimia brought about by pressures of female beauty standards. We were surprised to realize she puts extreme pressure on herself to lose weight and, as a result, has an all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to food restrictions. When breaking food rules, she feels guilt that causes her to fall into a cycle of binging and purging. We wondered if this means her eating disorder behaves like an addiction in that it is largely triggered by common life stress and acts as an obsession with a body standard. It would be game-changing to provide healthy interventions that prevent triggering a relapse into the addiction of an eating disorder.

HMW

use positive messaging and accurate information to shift users’ mindsets in recovery?

Our poster served as a visual synthesis of the entire design journey. We organized it around three key threads:

1. The Problem Space — highlighting the inaccessibility of eating-disorder therapy and the emotional challenges of self-guided recovery.

2. Our Solution — the stage-based roadmap, toolbox, and tracker system.

3. Our Process — a clear progression from needfinding → low-fidelity → medium-fidelity → high-fidelity prototyping

To balance sensitivity and engagement, we used soft pastel colors and hand-drawn mascots (the turtle and llama) to symbolize progress and companionship.

• Stress and overwork commonly triggered disordered eating cycles.

• Misinformation online worsened both relapse and recovery attempts.

• Therapy is expensive and inaccessible.

• Self-motivation fluctuates, making it hard to sustain progress.

• Emotional regulation and coping were critical to recovery.

• “All-or-nothing” thinking created guilt and relapse loops.

• Body image issues remained persistent even after behavioral recovery.

Using insights from prototypes, we refined our solution: A stage-based recovery roadmap combining structured guidance, self-reflection, and positive reinforcement.

We felt this best suited our problem space! While community presents a good opportunity, it is also difficult to regulate and ensure others are not encouraging each other negatively rather than positively. We found in the trivia that while the information is useful, it should be structured towards users specific needs, and we felt the best way to convey this was based on the “stage” of recovery they are on. Our stages are borrowed from the addiction recovery models G-CHIME and ETM, inspired by the insights JH gave us in her needfinding interview.

We then studied four leading apps — Noom, Pomellow, Recovery Record, and Brighter Bite — to identify gaps:

From this our concept evolved into a holistic recovery companion, combining:

1. Educational modules with bite-sized lessons and reflective journaling

2. A Toolbox for coping mechanisms

3. A Mood and stress tracker, to see clear progress over time

4. A gamified roadmap guiding users through the stages of recovery

We constructed paper prototypes representing 3 taskflows:

Simple: Toolbox
Add triggers with associated coping mechanisms

You can read more about our Medium-Fidelity prototype in our README

As we finalized our high-fidelity prototype, our focus shifted toward communicating our design story — turning months of research and iteration into a concise, compelling narrative for the CS 147 Design Expo.
This phase was as much about storytelling as design: we wanted every artifact — the poster, pitch, and live demo — to reflect FoodWise’s empathetic tone and structured recovery philosophy.

This single slide brought together our visual identity:

• Warm, inclusive illustration showing emotional support and safety.

• Interface mockups highlighting the roadmap and toolbox features.

• Color palette of soft greens and peaches symbolizing calm, renewal, and growth.

• Tagline: “Your roadmap to real recovery.”

Together, these elements reinforced FoodWise’s dual goals — to make recovery feel structured yet gentle, clinical yet human.

Our live demo was built with React Native + Expo Go, allowing visitors to interact with the prototype directly on their phones.
The demo flow guided users through:

1. Introductory survey → personal reflection and onboarding

2. Toolbox feature → adding, editing, and deleting coping tools

3. Lesson module → completing an educational task with journaling

4. Mood Tracking → for mood, stress, and “food noise”

5. Emergency Assistance → help for instances of relapse/near-relapse

We also prepared Wizard-of-Oz interactions for non-functional components (e.g., the tracker’s pre-filled data and lesson video mockups) to preserve flow and realism during testing.

During the Expo, we presented FoodWise to instructors, peers, and visiting judges.
Feedback praised the clarity of our value proposition and the harmony between empathetic tone, gamified visuals, and educational content. Visitors described the experience as “uplifting,” “non-judgmental,” and “surprisingly joyful for such a serious topic.”

We took our insights and transitioned to digital, building an interactive Figma prototype. We shifted our taskflows and expanded our app structure to include five roadmap stages:

Awareness → Understanding → Emotional Regulation → Self-Compassion → Maintenance.

Each represented by a unique shop with a unique shop owner.

Poster Design