challenge

• About 32 million people in the U.S have a food allergy.

• Every three minutes, a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency room. 

• Each year in the U.S., 200,000 people require emergency medical care for allergic reactions to food.

• Childhood hospitalizations for food allergy tripled between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s.

• More than 40 percent of children with food allergies and more than half of adults with food allergies have experienced a severe allergic reaction such as anaphylaxis.

• Medical procedures to treat anaphylaxis resulting from food allergy increased by 380 percent between 2007 and 2016.

solution

MyAllergyPal is a platform to help minimize the risk of these allergies, through the ability to scan the barcodes of food items and be informed whether the food is allergen-free or not.

As a UX and Visual Designer for this project, my role was to contribute all phases of the research and design process and to individually create all the visual design elements.

Overview

Process

Phase 1: Understand

Research Objective: 

• To understand the experience of those affected with a food allergy

• To find out what people with food allergies do on the day-to-day

"I always have to triple-check with the waiter because I have experienced so much miscommunication in the past and it doesn't create a nice experience." - Anonymous 

Phase 2: Define

We found that users want to try new foods at the supermarket and feel safe about purchasing new items from the grocery, but they did not want to spend time reading the ingredients list because it was always very overwhelming and at risk of misreading.

Phase 3: Ideate

Phase 4: Design

Phase 5: Test

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Most fatal food allergy reactions are triggered by food consumed outside the home.

Future enhancements would be to start scanning restaurant menu items so we can target more people and create a better experience for them when eating out.