Milestone 1 Demo Plan

Introduction

Affordable & Healthy Eating Hub is a web and mobile platform designed to help users make nutritious eating both accessible and affordable. It enables people to discover and share healthy recipes, compare grocery prices, and plan meals based on their personal dietary needs and budgets. By integrating a verified food catalog with detailed nutrition data, community-driven recipe sharing, and meal planning tools, the platform empowers users to make informed food choices. It also fosters a supportive community where users can exchange tips, verify professional contributors like dietitians, and explore cost-effective meal options that suit various lifestyles and health goals.

Problem

In today’s fast-paced world, many individuals struggle to maintain a healthy diet within a limited budget. Grocery prices fluctuate significantly, and reliable nutritional information is often scattered across multiple sources. As a result, people—especially students, families, and individuals with dietary restrictions—face difficulties in finding affordable meals that meet their nutritional needs.

Additionally, misinformation about food and health spreads easily online, making it challenging for users to trust the sources of recipes or nutrition tips. Existing applications often focus on either calorie tracking or recipe sharing, but few combine verified data, cost awareness, and community trust in one platform.

The Affordable & Healthy Eating Hub addresses these challenges by offering a unified system where users can compare food prices, explore recipes based on dietary needs, verify professional contributors, and access accurate nutritional details—all while promoting an inclusive and informed approach to healthy eating.

UX Strategy

We design for everyone, on web and mobile: snappy flows, Light/Dark mode by default, and dietary tags that align with user allergens (plus Halal support) so filtering feels effortless. We keep things inclusive and local-friendly, while privacy & data protection are non-negotiable (clear consent, minimal data, secure by default). The result: fast, trustworthy journeys from food search → meal plan → share—no clutter, no guesswork.

Web Demo - Scenario 1

Scenario Title: Mike Customizes His Halal Meal Plan

Actor: Mike Tyson

Narrative: A world-famous retired heavyweight champion in his late 50s, Mike's life is a testament to discipline and reinvention. As a practicing Muslim, his dietary choices must adhere to halal standards. Post-career, he is focused on a new fight: maintaining long-term health and vitality. An old injury has left him with difficulty differentiating certain colors, making clear, high-contrast digital interfaces essential for him. He values simplicity and direct results, preferring apps that get straight to the point.

Goals:

• To easily find and plan halal, nutritious, and simple meals.
• To track key nutritional information like calories and macros without complicated tools.
• To use an application that is visually accessible and easy to navigate.
• To connect with a community for new ideas and motivation.

Pain Points:

• Difficulty finding apps that cater specifically to halal dietary needs.
• Frustration with cluttered app interfaces that are hard to read due to low color contrast.
• Finding community-generated recipes that are trustworthy and nutritionally sound.

Preconditions and Scenario Flow: Mike has just signed up for the Healthy Eating Hub to bring structure back to his diet. He needs to set up his profile to reflect his religious dietary needs and accessibility requirements. He then wants to customize his meal plan with something he likes.

Goal: To set up an accessible, halal-compliant profile, generate a meal plan, and then modify it with a food of his own.

Steps (User Flow):

1. Onboarding & Setup:

   • Mike signs up and logs in for the first time.
   • During the setup process, he selects key preferences: Halal under "Dietary Requirements" and toggles on High Contrast Mode.

2. Initial Plan Generation:

   • On the main dashboard, he taps "Generate My Daily Plan."
   • The system automatically presents a daily plan where all recipe options are halal-certified.
   • He taps on a "Grilled Lamb Kofta" meal. The app clearly displays its total calories, protein, carbs, and fat in large, distinct text.

3. Plan Modification:

   • Mike doesn’t prefer “Grilled Lamb Kofta” and he wants to edit that meal inside the “Meal Planner."
   • He taps on the "Grilled Lamb Kofta" meal and selects the "Remove from Plan" option.
   • An empty slot now appears for the dinner. He taps "Add Meal."
   • He uses the custom food adding option to add the food he wants and adds it to the plan.

4. Plan Saving:

   • Mike is satisfied with his meal plan and he wants to save it to check his plan later.
   • He taps on “Save Meal Plan to the Profile” and saves the meal plan to his profile.
   • Later that day, he checks his profile and verifies his meal plan.

Success Condition: Mike's weekly meal plan is now updated to reflect his personal choice, while still adhering to his halal requirement and being perfectly legible on his screen. He also saved his meal plan to his profile which helped him track his diet better. He feels in control and empowered by the app's flexibility and accessibility.

Mobile Demo - Scenario 2

Scenario Title: Eren Discovers a Vegan, High-Protein Recipe from a Trusted Expert 

Actor: Eren Akın (The User) 

Narrative: Eren is performing a high-protein bulking strategy for the next powerlifting championship and needs the most protein-dense, vegan recipe possible to get his amino-acids. He finds a promising option but, since he is vegan, he must first verify the author's credentials before trusting the recipe, because it's not always clear whether a food item is vegan or not. He then examines the main ingredient to confirm its high-carb power. 

Goal: To find and verify a high-protein, vegan recipe by checking the author's professional credentials, and then examining the nutritional details of a key ingredient. 

Precondition: User is already signed and logged in. 

Steps (User Flow):

1. Filtering and Sorting Recipes:
   • Eren navigates to the Recipes section in Forum.
   • He searches vegan in search bar.
   • He selects "Carbohydrate Content (High to Low)."
2. Author Verification (Trust Check):
   • The top result is a recipe titled "Vegan Nigerian Jollof Rice with Tofu and Beer-Infused Flavor", taps on the author's name/profile picture.
   • On the author's profile page, he sees a "Nutritionist" tag and the badge of  verified, confirming professional expertise.
3. Recipe Analysis:
   • Satisfied, Eren returns to the recipe page and reviews the ingredient list. He notes the primary component is 'Tofu'.
4. Ingredient Exploration:
   • Curious about this single ingredient's high-protein potential, Eren navigates to the "Food Catalog."
   • He uses the search bar and types: "Tofu"
   • He taps on the result to view its full Nutrition Values, seeing the high concentration of proteins.
5. Success and Adoption:
   • Eren is impressed by the raw ingredient's density and the recipe's reliability. He thinks, "Woww, what a foood, I will eat this more".

Success Condition: Eren successfully used advanced app features to find a performance-optimizing, high-carb, gluten-free recipe Bánh Xèo and confirmed its safety and quality through the author's verified professional credentials, giving him complete peace of mind.