Sprinkle your Luck is a gamified solution to healthy eating for young children. The desired behaviour is to intrinsically motivate the child to eat raw vegetables and fruits by encouraging them to play and get creative with their food.
My Role
Led the 4 member design team through product strategy, solutioning and key artefact design
Key Area
Game mechanics, Play to motivate behaviour change
Target Audience
Children aged 6-9 yrs in urban households
The Problem Space
There is immense research in the space of packaged food consumption and its cognitive effects on young kids and adolescents and the data around packaged food consumption is staggering. Providing balanced and nutrient-dense meals to a growing child is of grave importance to their physical and mental wellbeing. Therefore, young kids need to consume everyday home-cooked meals incorporating raw fruits & vegetables in their diet.
What the Data Says
35% of children consume vegetables as part of every meal and only 18% of urban children in grade 6 to 10 in India eat fruits every day
The ready availability, taste, low cost, commercial marketing strategies, and peer pressure makes Junk Food popular with children and adolescents in both urban and rural areas
Camera Study
Shadowing our users
Kids from 6-14yrs were studies and observed for their day to day eating habits. They were observed in different settings at home during usual meals, when something appetizing is made, when outside at a restaurant etc.
It was observed that young boys had the tendency to be more dramatic with their usual meals. All kids needed at least *one* item that made the rest of the meal more palatable- be it cheese, ketchup, ghee, papad etc.
Here we see the same child having polar opposite reactions to their food. At a restaurant they DO NOT want to share their waffles with their siblings (despite being at a breakfast buffet 😂). At home they are avoiding the *mandatory* (for a growing boy) second servings offered my the motherly figures.
Homemade = Healthy?
Mothers often prefer something “homemade” over packaged or restaurant food, even if it is equally unhealthy
Most mothers resort to malt-based drinks to get their children to drink milk. Funnily, mothers even prefer to prepare snacks that are high in sodium and caloric content as long as its made with her own to hands. "Homemade" here gives them some sense of autonomy over their child's diet.
Diary Study
and your typical franchise fast food as unhealthy
Only one child labelled an Indian diet of dal/ rice/ sabzi/ roti as healthy
The Solution
The game box includes a sprinkle punch for leafy vegetables or thin vegetable slices, a sprinkle grinder for creating tiny confetti, a 3D puzzle maker that can be used to turn hard veggies like carrots in to a three dimensional masterpiece and an assortment of nugget cutters to have coin sized bites.
