Market Adventure
A mobile scavenger hunt app that helps children discover healthy foods at farmers markets and prevents childhood obesity.
The Team
Jennifer Coppola
Researcher
Kristin Hare Lawson
UX Designer & Researcher
Salomé Lemaire
Researcher & Developer
The Users
Childhood obesity is a widespread health issue in the United States, affecting 1 in 5 children (1). Despite its prevalence, both children and parents often fail to recognize when weight has become a health concern, making early intervention difficult (2) (3).
Primary Users: Children ages 6-10 who are able to read and interact with a mobile experience
Secondary Users: Parents responsible for shaping household food habits but struggle with picky eating and resistance to dietary changes
The Problem
Research shows that parents play a critical role in shaping children’s behavior, yet many feel uncertain, underinformed, or judged when trying to address weight-related health concerns (4). According to nutritionists, when parents try to intervene, they face pushback from children and stop trying to change their behavior.
The Solution
A scavenger hunt app that transforms grocery shopping and food exploration into a game.
The experience encourages children to discover and try new healthy foods through playful challenges, while providing parents with simple recipes and guidance, helping families confidently build healthier habits together.
Research
Research Methods
- Literature Review on childhood nutrition to understand intervention products and effectiveness
- Survey of parents in health communities to gain a broad understanding of parents’ perception of their children’s weight, family eating habits, and successful and unsuccessful intervention strategies with their children
- Interviews with 3 adults who were overweight as children to understand behavior change and impact
Pivot: People Don't Want to Talk About It
Openly discussing childhood obesity can be a sensitive topic for most parents, as they feel they did something wrong or even failed as parents. We had difficulty finding parents to interview for further insight, so pivoted our interview search to young adults who had been overweight as children.
Key Insights
Affinity Mapping & Findings
Family support is critical
Changing a child’s eating habits requires alignment between caregivers. Parents also need support and strategies to manage the pushback children often show when food routines change.
Convenience shapes behavior
Busy schedules make it difficult for families to prioritize healthy meals. Parents want quick, easy meal options and simple shopping experiences that fit into their routines.
Children engage more when they feel in control
Children are more open to trying foods when they feel they have some choice in what they eat rather than feeling forced.
Food experiences can be fun and motivating
Activities like visiting farmers markets can make food exploration feel like a family activity rather than a chore, especially for younger children, while older children appreciate snacks.
Parents want clearer nutrition guidance
Many parents feel uncertain about what healthy eating actually looks like. Understanding of “balanced meals” varies widely, and misconceptions are common.
Trying new foods is the biggest challenge
Parents consistently struggle to get children to try new foods. Success often depends on the child’s personality, mood, and day.
Design Opportunities
- Create a playful learning experience that make healthy foods engaging for children
- Leverage successful game principles of goal setting and progress towards a goal
- Encourage family participation in food discovery and decision-making
- Give families clearer insight into their eating habits and simple guidance for building healthier ones
- Support parents with tools that help them navigate resistance to dietary change
Design Ideation
Brainstorm
We held a brainstorm session and mapped the ideas based on ones that had the biggest impact and were the most feasible.
Three Concepts
Scavenger Hunt
Children explore a farmer’s market through a playful mobile game, solving clues and completing tasks to earn points. The app encourages interaction with farmers and discovery of new foods, while supporting friendly competition with siblings or friends.
Sample Tastings
A game that introduces children to new foods by prompting tastings at the market though encouragement from a cute animal character, which promotes social desirability and incentive to earn points. Children select preferences, try new foods, and rate them, giving them a sense of control while feeding insights to parents and suggestions for healthy recipes using those ingredients.
Market Buddy
An interactive teddy bear guides children toward healthy foods, showing the effect of choices on the bear’s energy. As children explore the market, the companion app shares favorite foods and recipe suggestions with parents.
Sketch by Jen Coppola
Concept Validation
We visited 2 farmer’s markets in the Atlanta area to gather feedback on the three low fidelity concepts. Using intercept sampling, we explained the concepts and quickly interviewed 8 parents of children ages 1-8. While we initially hoped to test with children who would be the users, we chose not to approach them directly to avoid making rushed parents uncomfortable.
Findings
Concept preference varied by child age
3 parents of younger children (ages 1–4) favored Market Buddy, while 5 parents of older children (ages 6+) preferred Scavenger Hunt or Sample Tastings.
Parents suggested combining concepts
Half of the parents recommended merging the Scavenger Hunt and Sample Tastings ideas to create a single experience that blends discovery with trying new foods.
Parents prioritized supervision over screen-time concerns
While we expected to hear concerns about screen time, parents were more concerned about keeping children nearby and visible while shopping.
Activities should match the shopping experience
Half of parents preferred an activity that lasts roughly the length of a market visit and keeps children engaged while they shop.
Design Direction
Given our target audience was children ages 6-10, we prioritized feedback from parents of older children and used these insights to drive our refined design concept, combining elements of the Scavenger Hunt and Sample Tastings.
Design Refinement
Based on parent feedback, I combined the Scavenger Hunt and Sample Tastings into a single experience. I introduced a selectable animal companion to give children a sense of ownership and added more photo-based challenges, which resonated strongly with parents during earlier concept validation.
To make food feedback more playful, the rating system was redesigned so children drag foods into emotion jars. Features that parents responded less positively to, such as parent confirmation prompts and the food art activity, were removed to simplify the experience.
Concept Validation
Parent Interviews + Paper Prototype
We tested a paper prototype of the refined concept through intercept interviews with three parents of children ages 1-8 at a different Atlanta farmer’s market. The goal was to understand how long families typically shop in farmer’s markets, assess reactions to the prototype, and learn what elements would engage children while fitting into parents’ shopping routines.
Key Insights
Visual, image-driven interactions resonate with children
All parents believed the concept would increase engagement at the market, especially if the experience remained simple and visual.
“As long as it is user friendly and image-driven, for the four-year-old and up, this is good and engaging”
~ Parent 2
Connecting the game to cooking increased parent interest
Parents responded positively to features that encouraged children to try new foods and thought it would increase child participation in cooking at home.
Content should adapt to season and location
Participants noted that food challenges should reflect seasonal and regionally available produce, suggesting the experience adapt dynamically to local markets.
Screen-time concerns varied by child age
Parents of younger children were more cautious about screen time, while parents of children ages 5+ were comfortable if they could supervise use during the activity.
Expert Input from a Nutritionist
Since “limiting screen time” had been a concern from a few parents in previous interviews, we interviewed a pediatric nutritionist about the true dangers of screen time and if they applied to our app idea. She said that typical risks of screen use involve passive or sedentary behavior. Since our concept encourages movement, environmental interaction, and cognitive engagement, it avoids many of those concerns. Given that farmers markets operate during daytime hours, she also noted that blue light exposure was unlikely to meaningfully affect sleep.
Design Implications
These insights reinforced that our design concept promotes cognitive and environmental engagement while encouraging active movement, hence directly combating the majority of screen time concerns. Therefore, we concluded to continue designing a mobile game application.
Prototyping
I redesigned the app with more playful, colorful illustrations and created clickable prototype in Invision.
The parent’s screens and children’s screens have a slightly different styling, with the parent’s screens being simpler and darker.
Home Screen
Child Screen: Foods tried
Parent Screen: Recipes
Usability Testing
I conducted usability testing with two children ages 7 and 9 and their parents. The participants were neighbors, so there may have been some participant bias, but they were within the target age range and able to provide early feedback on the concept.
The research session consisted of a semi-structured interview with the parents, a semi-structured interview with each child, and task-based user testing of the prototype with each child.
Findings
Overall, feedback was very positive. The app would encourage children to try new foods, even if their main incentive was to earn points to unlock special characters.
Points and rewards strongly motivated engagement
Both children were eager to earn points in order to unlock characters and progress in the game.
“I want to get more points to unlock the seal because seals are so cute!”
~ Child 2
Personal connections to foods increased interest
Children were excited when the characters referenced foods they already liked.
“I like the bear because blueberries are his favorite snack and they’re mine too!”
~ Child 1
Game incentives encouraged willingness to try new foods
Even when children initially expressed dislike for certain foods, they were willing to try them in order to earn points.
“I don’t like blueberries, but I will try one just to get the points.”
~ Child 2
“I’m not a picky eater, but I don’t like vegetables”
~ Child 1
Minor design element changes can reduce usability challenges
Challenges with the ability to “heart” recipes to save for later and confusion about the shape of an onion being a radish are small adjustments that can be easily improved.
Future Considerations
Advances in Computer Vision could allow the app to accurately recognize photos of produce, enabling children to identify foods and complete challenges in real time. Farmers markets primarily feature raw produce, making food recognition more feasible.
Future work would include testing with a broader group of children to gather additional usability feedback.
Additional opportunities include:
- Location boundaries for safety, allowing parents to set a GPS perimeter.
- Expanded food learning, adding educational content to the “foods tried” section.
References
(1) “Childhood Overweight.” Childhood Overweight – The Obesity Society, www.obesity.org/obesity/resources/facts-about-obesity/childhood-overweight.
(2) Hobson, Katherine. “Many Kids Who Are Obese Or Overweight Don’t Know It.” NPR, NPR, 23 July 2014, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/07/23/334091461/many-kids-who-are-obese-and-overweight-dont-know-it.
(3) He, Meizi, and Anita Evans. “Are parents aware that their children are overweight or obese? Do they care?” Canadian Family Physician, vol. 53, no. 9, Sept. 2007, pp. 1493–1499.
(4) Wilfley, Denise E., et al. “Counseling and Behavior Change in Pediatric Obesity.” Pediatric Clinics of North America, vol. 58, no. 6, 2011, pp. 1403–1424., doi:10.1016/j.pcl.2011.09.014.