JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Fruit and vegetable consumption is lower than national trends among people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) benefits due to economic and physical access barriers. Monetary nutrition incentive programs at farmers markets aim to reduce these barriers to improve diet quality among SNAP consumers. We leveraged human centered design principles to collaboratively design a mobile application to increase utilization of both nutrition incentive programs and farmers markets among SNAP households with children. This population represents about 35% of all SNAP households providing the dual benefit of improving diet for both adults and children.

Objective:

In this paper, we share the iterative, community-engaged development process employed to design a technology intervention that encourages the integration of farmers markets into the food shopping routines of SNAP consumers with children.

Methods:

We followed the inspiration and ideation phases of human centered design. In the “inspiration” phase, we worked with community nutrition experts to define both the goal of and target audience for the app (i.e., SNAP households with children). In the subsequent “ideation” phase, we completed three stages of data collection. We developed two interface prototypes and received feedback from end users on design and usability preferences before selecting a baseline model. Additional feedback gathered from qualitative interviews with 20 SNAP consumers with children was incorporated into the app’s version 1 (V1) development. We then shared V1 with SNAP consumers with children and farmers market managers to test the functionality, design, and utility of the app.

Results:

The community nutrition partners identified SNAP consumers with children under 18 years as the target population for the app in the “inspiration” phase. In the “ideation” phase, we successfully created V1 through three stages of a community-engaged process. First, SNAP consumers and farmers market managers selected a grocery-shopping design option for the layout of the app. Second, we integrated features identified by SNAP consumers with children, such as market information (i.e., location with GPS address links, hours, website), likely available market inventory, market events, and grocery shopping checklists. Finally, we obtained additional recommendations for future versions of the app from participants including real-time changes in market hours, additional notification options, and grocery list personalization during a demonstration of V1.

Conclusions:

It is feasible for community nutrition researchers to successfully design a community-engaged mobile app with the assistance of software developers. The human centered design approach was key to us integrating potential end users’ preferences in the design of V1. Future work will assess the app’s impact on low-income families’ use of local farmers markets and nutrition incentive programs, as well as fruit and vegetable consumption.