Context


 * no current design implemented
 * the strictly, traditional nutritional information does not work anymore ( no one pays attention to it) people don't read it - menu and information are separated.
 * ProLife kiosk helps customer filter choices ( what they feel like eating today i.e.:chicken) once dishes appear in a list format - adjacent data is displayed with further options to choose from. Once end user selects health information data and confirms meal choice they can receive a coupon for the selected meal.
 * social dimension: publicly available, anyone can access (accessibility included - screen moves up and down)
 * design space = food court, modern apart of environment

 Current solutions to the problem of obesity involve informational dissemination of nutritional health awareness through schools and public health outlets. Canada’s Food Guide, made available by Health Canada, is available for print and order online or by phone. The guide delivers information regarding portion sizes and details on the function of metabolizing calories. It also provides guidelines of what to look for when reading Nutrition Fact labels. In Canada, these labels were introduced as part of regulations passed in 2003, and eventually became mandatory in 2005. The labels relay facts regarding the ingredients of the food or drink, and help provide transparency in the marketplace for the consumer. It has been almost 6 years since the labels became mandatory, however, self reported obesity is still increasing. The members of this group believe that something further must be done to overcome this problem. We believe the answer is to provide a "Smart Menu" that can compare any or all food source providers listed items in a nutritionally ranked order, based on the selected menu item. The concept is to create competition between restaurants for their rank on the menu, while at the same time delivering the Nutrition Facts of the menu items. For instance, say the "Smart Menu" was comparing McDonalds, Wendy’s, Mr. Greek, and Harvey’s, and you want to order a 4 once burger. After making your selection, a list of items that fit the description from the four restaurants is returned to you in an order ranked from the most nutritious to the least nutritious selection. This allows the user to see how the different restaurants stack up against each other’s listed items. Ultimately, teaching the user which item is the smartest choice. Over time, with using the system, individuals will begin to remember which restaurants are consistently delivering the most nutritious food, and will hopefully begin to choose these locations over their previous choices. The restaurants that "win" from using this system are rewarded by the recommendation provided to the user from the "Smart Menu". The "losers" are the restaurants that are least recommended, which are placed at the end of the list (where they may not even be seen at all if the user does not scroll down the list far enough to see them). The systems design will hopefully motivate the consistent "losers" to change their behavior of selling non-healthy food. The beauty of the design is that there will always be "losers" and therefore always competition to do better. In order to test the design, we believe that mall food courts will provide the best arena for observation. Our feelings are that in order to get people comfortable with this new technology, it should be implemented in a place where they are not rushed. The assumption is that people usually go to the mall on their leisure time, and will choose to participate in a new "hands on" meal selecting system.