The sensory cues in the interface allow for Chefs to readily identify mild, moderate and severe allergies or intolerances to specific food groups. This is to further prevent further misunderstanding or incorrect relays of information from waitstaff and allow for safely prepared food.
Course
ALLergy is a system that allows users to take control and have all of their allergies and food intolerance in one portable location. This system would reduce the number of errors in communication of individual dietary restrictions while allowing users to feel a sense of security.
2021
Year
10 weeks
Duration
My role
Interaction Lead
Co- Research Lead
Vision Video
Final Presentation
Processbook
Deliverables
IACT 375
Professor Ascanio
Opportunity
Developing ALLergy: a system that allows for users to take control by having all of their allergies and food intolerances in one portable location. This system would reduce the amount of errors in communication of individual dietary restrictions, while allowing users to feel a sense of security dining out.
We felt if there was a better system for communication between customer's , waitstaff, and the kitchen about customer's unique dietary restrictions/allergies, then the risk of dining out would be greatly reduced and enjoyed more.
Our Assumptions
Secondary Research
ALLergy features
With the current rise in allergies and food sensitivities, which has now increased by 50% with an even wider range of foods included, our team decided to proactively design for this upcoming new generation of diners. The focus was to use a system, ALLergy, to record each participating user’s distinct allergies, allowing for a safe dining experience. ALLergy consists of three main features: The ALLergy app, POS systems, and physical flag for food.
The ALLergy app is a personalized way to update all of your dietary restrictions and allergies and hold them in one single, portable location. It also allows parents of children to create accounts or even have multiple accounts, to offer parents of children with dietary needs the ease of mind to dine outside of the home.
The POS systems would also allow for each participating restaurant to quickly scan or punch in a user’s ALLergy ID and have all of their dietary restrictions accessible to kitchen staff. This allows for the kitchen to have a user’s exact allergens on their kitchen displays in an easy-to-read format.
Since our research found dining out is where the most food reactions/ emergencies occur, we designed the app to input all of the user’s restriction information into restaurant’s POS systems on a tap or simple input of a User’s unique ID number.
Methods used: Observation studies, card sorting (open and closed), tree sorting, interviews.
Every 3 minutes a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room. 1 out of every 3 people suffer from some form of allergy and
31% of accidental allergen ingestion occur when eating in restaurants.
Knowing this, we reached out to people with allergies, chefs, restaurants owners, and restaurant waitstaff to hear more about their insights on this topic. From the interviews, we were able to find that there were two major problems: socialization and communication.
What we knew
Communication Discovery
- Eating out with dietary restrictions requires replanning to ensure they have options
- Social lives are disrupted because some restaurant are not accommodating
- Current systems take more time out of a server's finite amount
- Customer's best experience occurs when communication is clear
- Communication is not ideal, requiring improvements of the current system
Social Discovery
Once looked over the kitchen has the option to send a message to the customer that they have reviewed their allergy list or request to message them for any further clarification they may need. Once verified, the kitchen will begin preparing the meal in accordance to the customer’s specific needs. Then there is the final step: the flag for safely prepared food. This serves as an extra step and visual cue to customers with food sensitivities that their food was safely prepared by the chef.
Here is a render of our physical ALLergy ID. It has an LED chip that lights up when the kitchen has confirmed they have received your information