Can Scan
Scan your Food Products
Find out what is right for you
Are you Vegan? Vegetarian?
Do you have allergies or food restrictions?
Can-Scan provides a quick scan that tells you all you need to know
Overview
Can scan is a project I created in order to help the user while shopping.
The App lets you scan the products and tell you its good for you and your diet.
What are we trying to solve?
I designed this app through my digital design course at 6B. The app is meant to help people who are vegans, vegetarians, allergic to certain foods or are just trying to eat healthier.
Instead of wasting a long time reading all the ingredients, or only buying the same products that you know are safe, I wanted to have a quick an easy solution.
Also since most people don’t really understand the ingredient list, this app helps them eat well and know what are the healthier products without needing to be a dietary expert.
How it came to be
I came up with this idea after having to cook a meal for my family. I am not a great cook so I was already at a disadvantage, but add to that one vegan brother, one vegetarian brother and my mom’s food restrictions, and I had a snowballs chance in hell of making a good meal.
As I was shopping for the ingredients at the market, I realized how hard it was for me to even buy a single condiment without reading all the ingredients several times.
But am I the only one?
Research
Would this app interest anyone?
I interviewed my co-workers and friends as well as took a pole: 60% had food restrictions (allergies, vegan, vegetarian etc.), out of them about 90% had problems finding food products that suit them, especially during the period after they were diagnosed or changed their diet.
Though these findings didn’t surprise me I also found that about 30% rarely bought new food products. Those with restriction said it was hard to find something that suits their taste and still follows the restrictions.
After speaking with a nutritionist I discovered that even if I buy a product that is advertised as healthy, many companies exploit the law and do not properly inform the buyer of health risk. For example a diabetic may buy a product that is sugar free, but the product will still contain high levels of sugar without the diabetic knowing.
What are the existing apps?
Researching the apps that currently exist on the market was surprisingly underwhelming.
They were either poorly designed, gave too much information so the user couldn’t follow, or too little information that wasn’t helpful. You could only scan using your own parameters, meaning if you had to shop for several family members you couldn’t know what is right for the individuals, only for the family as a whole. Mostly the apps were not designed for the shopping experience.
There are sites that give you all the information you need (such as foodsdictionary.com), but you would have to take time to read about each product, and is probably something you would not want to do in the middle of the supermarket
Who?
So, taking into account the data I gathered, who is this app for?
When
What part of the users (Sara’s) daily life are we trying to change?
We are trying to change the moment she sees an interesting food product, to give her the confidence to check out new products and to not worry, instead of talking herself out of buying the product because of anxiety.
How does Can Scan work?
1
Set Up Profile
Create a user, where you can list your sensitivities, allergies, likes and dislikes
You can create a profile for each person you are shopping for
2
Scan
You open the app and scan the product
You can always change who you are scanning for, and in case you can’t find the barcode you can just search for the products
3
Learn
The app lets you know:
If there is a problem with the one or more of the ingredients
If it is a product that meets your likes
Who this product is good or bad for
All the nutritional information you may need
One Look is enough
The app is designed to give you the information in a single glance by showing you one of three colors after you scan a product:
RED
One or more of the ingredients doesn’t fit one of your profiles. The app will tell you at the top who can’t eat this product and why
BLUE
This product contains what one of your profile likes, or follows all the dietary restrictions. For example, if you had ‘low carb’ in your profile and the product is low carb, the app screen will be blue
GRAY
This product is OK for you, it doesn’t contain any ingredients that are bad for your profiles, but also doesn’t answer any specific likes or dietary preferences
Extra Features
These features, though not part of the primary use of the app, can help the user and the overall experience.
Ingredient list- Shows all the ingredients and nutritional information
Similar products- Shows you similar products that would suit your needs
Share, like and message board- Allows you to see comments from other costumers about specific products, lets you send your profile to other people and like certain products.