Meal planning in MyFitnessPal
Introduction
Objective
The objective is to revamp the current meal planning feature in MyFitnessPal and add multiple new features along with it. The new feature aims to introduce goal oriented meal planning, customizable meal options, auto-curated shopping list for the weeks ingredient shopping along  with a gamified user experience to keep the user engaged with the app.
What is MyFitnessPal and what do they do?
MyFitnessPal is a B2C SaaS mobile app service that provides users with macro-tracking, customizable workout plans, newsfeed with blogs and posts about healthy living and much more. Their recipe database has currently over 200 healthy recipes with detailed macro-nutrient splits. Although they provide various services and features, the primary focus of the app is to allow users to track their daily macro-nutrient intake.
Meal planning background and purpose
Diet is 70% of a person’s fitness journey, since most people eat home cooked food (either prepared by themselves or help) meal planning becomes a very crucial and essential part of a person’s fitness journey. People need to plan their weeks meal in advanced, and they have many constraints such as time, ingredients, monotonous meals and much more. A strong meal plan can aid a person to reach their fitness goals much faster and in an efficient manner.
User Research
Interviews
Conducted with 5 MyFitnessPal app users and others which used different solutions for meal planning to gain insights into their experiences, challenges, and preferences.
Surveys
Distributed among 20 MyFitnessPal app users to gather quantitative data on user needs and preferences.

Target audience & Personas
Target audience includes MyFitnessPal users who are interested in optimizing their nutrition to support their health and fitness goals. To better understand their needs and pain points, two primary personas were created:
Ideation
Affinity Mapping
I collected data from surveys and interviews and created an affinity map. The following were the key findings:
- Difficulty finding meal plans that align with specific fitness goals.
- Challenges with adapting meal plans to accommodate dietary preferences and restrictions.
- The need for a streamlined, user-friendly interface.
User Journeys
Based on the personas and interviews, I created user journeys for each of the personas. Each journey revealed key pain points, like in the case of Sonia, she had difficulty finding the right recipe that she liked and in case of Raj, he hardly found time outside of work and gym to make his meals everyday.

Competition Research
The competition analysis involved examining reviews on the App Store, feedback forums and testing of existing meal planning apps such as FitnessPal, MealMaster, and NutriPlan. Drawing inspiration from these existing solutions, I aimed at taking inspiration and solving new found pain points that users of these platforms have.
One of the key features adopted from FitnessPal was the concept of goal-oriented meal plans. This feature allowed users to select their fitness goals, such as weight loss or muscle gain, and generated personalized meal plans to support their objectives. This addressed the pain point of finding meal plans that align with specific fitness goals.
From MealMaster, I adopted the idea of customizable meal options. This feature provided users with an extensive database of recipes that could be filtered based on dietary preferences, restrictions and fitness goals to tailor the meals to each persons liking.
NutriPlan's emphasis on a user-friendly interface inspired the design solution. The aim was to provide a streamlined and intuitive meal planning interface that simplified the process of creating and adjusting meal plans along with clean UI and clear heirarchy.
New Task Flow
The new task flows and IA for were combined with the existing ones to create a unified experience which allowed the feature to take advantage of all the other features of the MyFitnessPal app.
Design Solution
Derived Solutions: Goal Oriented Meal Plans
Users have the ability to choose and create their own fitness goal. Thus the meal plan will be different for each user depending on their goal, target weight loss and restrictions of any.
Customizable Meal Options
Users have the customizability to add allergies and preferences (likes and dislikes), skip and change meals. All of these features combined give the user their own personal meal plan catering to all of their needs and goals.
Intuitive & Gamified Interface
A streamlined and user-friendly interface which combines existing features and journeys of MyFitnessPal. Key features include easy one click processes for shopping list, users can easily skip, change or cancel meals, users can change servings to adjust ingredient quantities and more.
User Testing
The objective of the user testing was to gain insight into how the users would use the new feature and their interaction with known pain points and search for new ones. These sessions were fundamental to create the Iteration #2 which addresses the key issues found in user testing.
Think Aloud Protocol
To gain insights into the participants' thought process, I encouraged them to use the think-aloud protocol, where they verbalized their thoughts, feelings, and actions as they interacted with the prototype. This allowed me to understand the participants' expectations, frustrations, and satisfaction levels throughout the testing process.
Observation and analysis
During each session, I observed the participants' interactions with the prototype and took detailed notes on their behavior, comments, and any difficulties they encountered. These notes were later used to analyze the results and identify patterns and trends.

Post testing interviews
After completing the tasks, I conducted a brief post-test interview with each participant to gather feedback on their overall experience with the feature. We asked questions about their satisfaction with the feature, any challenges they encountered, and suggestions for improvement.
Key Takeaways
Integration with MyFitnessPal
Difficulty in tracking the progress of meal plans and their impact on users' overall fitness goals within the app.
Navigation
 Difficulty finding the feature within the MyFitnessPal app.
Customization
Users struggling to modify meal plans according to their preferences, such as adjusting portion sizes.
Visual Design
Insufficient visual hierarchy, making it challenging to distinguish between different sections of the app, such as meal plans, recipes, and nutritional
Information Clarity
Users found it challenging to understand the relationship between their selected fitness goals and the generated meal plans.
Iterations and Refinements
After initial testing, I analyzed and addressed the key pain points discovered. After deriving the final solution, then I moved to the final high fidelity designs using the MyFitnessPal branding.
Validation Testing
After the design iterations, a round of validation testing was conducted to reassess and confirm if the new solutions addressed all key pain points.
Final Design
Initial Wireframes (Key screens)
Proposed Changes in UI
Considering the results of user testing and analysis, I have additionally also proposed a few changes in the colour scheme to improve the visual hierarchy, contrast and overall user experience to match with a modern minimalistic design that aligns with the message of the app, which is healthy living.
Learning
Learnings
While making this project, the biggest challange which also gave the greatest reward was creating multiple extensive flows. Since this was a big and detailed feature that combines with existing features, creating the current IA and task flows and integrating the feature into those was a learning experience for me.
Future Scope
As i suggested above, MyFitnessPal can rethink their color scheme to evoke a sense of healthy living with a modern theme, minimalistic UI components with clear visual hierarchy.

Additionally, some of the existing features like calorie counter can be integrated with AI to allow users to simply click a photo of their meal, upload the picture and get an accurate macro nutrient and calorie count. This feature can then be integrated with the meal planning feature to give a more immersive experience.
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