The concept

The Hackathon is a 24 hour sprint where we designers work with developers and create around an assigned theme. Once the team and theme was announced we took 5 minutes and all wrote down as many words as we could come up with. Just the first thing that came to our minds when thinking about what to do. The result was quite a large pile of little squares of paper. From there we narrowed the pile to the ones that we felt were interesting to pursue further with discussion. Those talks would go something like, "Movie Character Diet. Ok what is it? Look like a character whose physique you like. Ok, how do we find that info? Google "Tom Hardy Bane diet and workout" Etc. What we kept coming back to was healthy eating game. What would that look like? How would that work? When the answers started generating excitement and the concept was something we felt we could develop in time, we decided that it was time to focus in our attention on it. Pretty quickly we came to the idea that eating a fruit or vegetable would be worth points that would move a character towards a destination. Once the daily recommended amount was achieved the character would reach the finish line.

The approach

There would be two characters competing so to eat healthy would result in the feeling of winning. Parents would work with their kids on deciding a prize they would get for winning like pizza or ice cream, etc.. Then they would select which fruits and vegetables they were going to eat. We wanted to use fruits and vegetables that people typically had in their homes or easily accessible from their local grocery store. After the child would eat that fruit or vegetable they would touch the corresponding icon and their character would move up the vine. Different foods equaled different amounts of points, usually around 15 -20. The goal was to reach 200 points. 

The research

From there I dug in to find out what was the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables. After researching online to find what was consistent amounts across reputable sources (nutritionists, doctors) I found that the ratio of 2 servings of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables was consistently recommended for ages 2 -6 years old. Furthermore I found that 60% do not eat enough fruit and 93% do not eat enough vegetables! BUT! Even with those statistics children are eating more fruits and vegetables and less fruit juice than they were ten years ago. This info suggests that a better diet for children is becoming increasingly more important to parents.    

The persona

After we decided on the direction we were going, Ashley came up with the persona.

The Design

We wanted to use big, bright colors that appealed to kids and recognizable icons for the fruit and vegetable for them to choose from. We did this with the thought that this might be used by some very young children so we wanted to make it as easy to understand as possible. We always kept an eye on the goal of making eating healthy a fun game. 

Time was a factor so we all sketched out screens and decided which were best as we went along. All the while checking in with Sean to make sure that what we're planning on doing was possible in the allotted time. As soon as we would get the go ahead we would start working on sketching the next screen and finding themes and colors to use. 

Sean brilliantly worked in the movement of the characters up the vine. We were really happy with the way everything moved and felt that was indeed easy enough that a child could use. 

The results

The Hackathon is a competition at General Assembly. After we finish our work in that 24 hour period we present it to classmates and instructors. The instructors then pick two winners out the competing groups. We were one of those two winners! We took home the prize for ingenuity.  

The takeaway 

Even though this was a very quick project it's one that I'm proud of. There was a moment there where we were undecided late in the game about which direction to go in. Sean was waiting for us to give him anything to work on while we went back and forth about what to do. I finally just said that this is what we're doing so let's start doing it. After that we were off to the races and got it all done in just a few hours. It taught me that there definitely comes a time to be decisive and assertive and I'll be taking that lesson with me.