Needfinding

To kick off our needfinding process we tried to get a general idea of student eating habits on campus and what kinds of nutrition/budgentting related problems do they face. We had three hypotheses that we were testing out:

Majority of students aren't able to budget effectiviely and often run out of declining/or have too much left by the end of semester
Majority students don't track their nutritional intake or try to understand what they are eating.
There is an opening for an app that could fill this need to improve overall nutrition.

To do this we created a survey with the following questions:

What do you think about the food options at UR?
What dining plan do you currently have?
Have you ever run out of declining before the end of semester?
How frequently do you count calories when you eat?
Do you currently use any websites/apps to track your daily nutrition?
How often do you use the dining services website for information?
Do you know about the UR Mobile App?
Please mark how often you use the following dining options.
- Rockies, Pit, Starbucks, Grab N' Go, Late Night Douglass, Califorinia Rollin @ Simon/Pit, Peete's Coffee, Connections Cafe (ITS), Optikale, Hillside/Southside Market, Eastman Dining Center, Medical Center, I cook my own food, and Delivery/Take Out.
What is your class year?

We got some interesting results from the survey:

How frequently do you count calories when you eat?

Implication:

This showed us that most people do not currently keep track of what they are eating or try to understand it's nutritional value
Caveat: We understand that "calorie counting" in general isn't regarded as healthy and that by using the term "calorie" we may have biased the result

Have you ever run out of declining before the semester ends?

Implication:

This proved our hypothesis that a majority of college students are unable to keep track of their budget efficiently.
Caveat: Different students have different meal plans and therefore use their declining differently. A person with unlimited swipes may run out of declining but their general meals can still be paid for via swipes, for example.

Do you currently use any apps/websites to track your nutrition?

Implications:

There is an opening for our product which isn't currently filled by many other competitors.
Caveat: There may be a many reasons why people don't use apps not captured here.

How often do you use the dining services website for information?

Implications:

The dining hall website provided similar nutritional information as we wish to but nearly 67% of people seem to use it only Occasionally to Rarely. This shows that there is a need for a new deisgn/information architecture
Caveat: It could also just be an accesibilty issue where people don't typically think to go to a website while they are ourchasing food.

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