Overview

My project idea is an app on your smartphone that is aimed to help reduce obesity and improve health throughout Australia and the world, the app will remind the user to exercise, drink water, stretch, eat healthy, get motivated, create goals and work towards them, etc. The app will be very easy to use and will be a tracker type of app, if you exercised, it will reward you. The app will track things like calorie intake to help you be on track to not over-eat or under-eat. The app will base all this off age, weight, height, sex, etc.

Motivation

Last year it was recorded that 63% of all adults (18+) were obese or overweight, that is very close to 2 of every 3 adults. Obesity has increased heavily over the years and has become worse of a problem. Growing up I struggled with weight issues but through creating healthy habits, I was able to lose weight, so I wasn’t overweight anymore. I only drink water, watch what I eat, exercise regularly and maintain my motivation. I hope my project to improve health and lose weight can help others around Australia and the world change their lives for the better.

Description

The app I want to create is called ‘Health Status’, the logo will be a heart with an H inside of the heart, this makes it obvious to the user that the app focuses on health. By using a heart in the logo, the app is easily recognisable and memorable, also a heart is a symbol of health in today’s society and the connection can be made easily. When opening the app for the first time, the user will be prompted to sign up. No personal level details will be recorded so that privacy is ensured. They will be prompted to watch a quick video explaining how the app works or they can choose to undergo the tutorial. The user will input stats such as Age, Weight, Height and Sex. Specifications will be chosen for the user depending on these statistics, if an abnormality is found, for example, 130cm height with 120kgs, the user will be prompted more towards the eating healthy side of the app where they will be encouraged to eat healthy, track meals, record calorie intake and exercise regularly. This will help them to lose weight and create healthy habits to continue following as they progress through time. The user can choose to update their information at any time, this will be tracked so that the user can see their progress overtime and use it as motivation to keep going. With the homepage set to a feed type, there will be other pages/sections within the app. There is a food and water consumption section, exercise section, and motivation section. The food and water consumption section will track calorie intake, water consumption, provide healthy eating alternatives, and provide information of normal levels of food and water consumption. The app will send notification reminders for the user such as ‘Drink Water!’, ‘Have you exercised today?’, ‘Don’t forget to stretch every day.’, ‘Don’t forget to track your calories.’ With more to be decided. These reminders will help the user to stay on track with their progress and help them achieve their goals. In the exercise section, the user will be able to select their level of fitness and level of desired fitness, they will be offered workout plans based on their statistics and level of fitness, these will progressively get harder so the user can work towards their desired fitness level, the rate of progressiveness will depend on the user statistics. (Younger children will become fit more easily than adults). The motivation section will provide stories of users that have lost weight/improved their health and how it has helped them become a better person, combined with videos of motivation. In the goal setting section, the user can create their own goals to better themselves and provide milestones in their progress. They can tick off and/or update their goals at any time to meet their needs.

Tools and Technologies

In order to create the application, I would obviously need personal computers with windows on them. I would use Appery.io as my app development program because it is very easy to use and has a lot of functions that provide freedom to the developers and designers. The builder runs in the cloud so there is no need to download or install anything, this also ensures that progress is secure online. With drag and drop feature, the UI will be easy to create and manipulate to desirability. The project can be shared between computers so everyone can work on it at the same time.

Skills Required

The project would take multiple people to successfully function properly. A design team specifically looking at UX and its importance will make the app more pleasing to the user. Also, an app development team would be essential to getting the app running and functioning fluently and desirably, this team would also look at bug fixing and fixing any errors that occur. A support team would need to be employed so user’s needs are met, and user satisfaction is accomplished. A social media team would be very important in spreading the word of the new app and selling the app well so that users are enticed to use it.

Outcome

If my app proves to be successful, Australia will be well on its way to creating a healthier future. Australia will reduce its obesity rate and increase its average lifespan. Aspects of life will be improved, Australia will see drops in diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, heart disease and cancer which will drop the death rate immensely. This will increase Australia’s reputation towards a brighter image which will encourage tourists to visit which boosts the economy, further benefiting Australians. With these benefits, Australia will have more funding for other categories, decreased overall costs and will provide a more successful society that can strive for greater things.