Co-designing food trackers with dietitians : Identifying design opportunities for food tracker customization

We report co-design workshops with registered dietitians conducted to identify opportunities for designing customizable food trackers. Dietitians typically see patients who have different dietary problems, thus having different information needs. However, existing food trackers such as paper-based diaries and mobile apps are rarely customizable, making it difficult to capture necessary data for both patients and dietitians. During the co-design sessions, dietitians created representative patient personas and designed food trackers for each persona. We found a wide range of potential tracking items such as food, reflection, symptom, activity, and physical state. Depending on patients’ dietary problems and dietitians’ practice, the necessity and importance of these tracking items vary. We identify opportunities for patients and healthcare providers to collaborate around data tracking and sharing through customization. We also discuss how to structure co-design workshops to solicit the design considerations of self-tracking tools for patients with specific health problems.