Gamified Mindful Eating- Routate
A master's thesis: a speculative app that helps busy young adults build sustainable, mindful eating habits through gamification and journaling.
UX Research
Speculative / Service Design
Role
UX Research · UX Design · Visual Design
Timeline
Master's Thesis Project (NYU)
team
Solo
platform
Mobile
Tools
Adobe CC, Figma, Miro
The Problem
Are you struggling with your eating habits? The fast-paced world we live in mashes work, academics, and personal life together and that frantic pace leads to an imbalance in eating that affects our lifestyle. With a lot on their plates, many young adults find it hard to take care of themselves.
Target Audience & Concept
The audience is young adults; university students and young professionals who live alone and are usually busy working. The guiding question: how might we increase the quality of daily meals for young adults who live alone and are usually working? The answer is Routate - a playful way to nurture healthy eating habits through gamification and journaling.
Design Process
(Discover → Define → Ideate → Design → Testing)
A five-phase process: Discover (user research, competitive analysis), Define (persona, journey map), Ideate (user flow, diary studies), Design (lo-fi → mid-fi → hi-fi, design system), and Testing (user play testing)."
Research & Insights
For the thesis, I circulated an online survey and conducted 5 user interviews and 3 expert interviews. Three insights shaped everything: habits are tied to maintaining good mental/physical health and self-discipline; motivation and accountability rise when two or more people build habits together; and even with a fixed schedule, a higher-priority task will make people skip their habits.
Key insights from interviews: accountability, motivation, and how competing priorities break habits.
Quantitative Research
An online survey of 15 questions drew ~50 responses, mostly students, IT professionals, and stock traders aged 20–35.
Survey highlights: 82.8% haven't used a habit-building app, 67.2% want a motivational driver, 81.2% would join habit-building challenges, 76.6% prefer statistical + pictorial progress, 72.6% feel inspired by peers' progress, and 77.8% feel motivated by rewards.
Paper Prototype Testing
I circulated a paper prototype with users for a week to learn about their journaling behavior and motivation to complete the task.
A week-long paper-prototype meal journal testing whether users would journal consistently before building the app.
Defining the User
Users told me "I'm constantly finding a lack of motivation for building eating habits" and "it's difficult to find time to do it at fixed hours."
How might we make habit-building more fun and meaningful? (gamify it with a virtual pet) and more relaxing to build (journal on your own time)?
Personas: Veena, a translator whose health suffers under work pressure, wants routine and motivation without rigid schedules.
User Flow: The user journey from deciding to change eating habits through routine, reward, and staying engaged long-term.
Competitive Analysis
Most food/nutrition apps give strong nutrition advice but don't remind users to eat on time, rarely use gamification or engaging reward systems, and default to weight-loss as the top priority. Routate instead suggests healthy habits customized to the user's needs and stays simple and effortless, which is exactly what I envisioned.
Comparing Routate against My Fitness Pal, Noom, Weight Watchers, Lose It, Cronometer, Plant Nanny, and Lumen across habit-building, gamification, reminders, and reward systems.
The Solution
Routate combines gamification, journaling, and community: a pet avatar that grows with your journey, food-mood journaling, mood checks, notifications to keep checking in, and a community to share progress.
"A small Home, your virtual pet" demo.
The home screen: a virtual pet that grows as you complete challenges
Design System
Low-fidelity wireframes establishing the core screens and flow and Mid-fidelity screens exploring layout, content, and the pet-growth mechanic.
Design guidelines (logo/type/color). The Routate identity: a clock-hand 'R' logo (timely eating), Darker Grotesque type, and a warm coral palette.
The App
Home & Challenges: Home with a growing pet avatar; challenges tailored to the user's phase, with a point system.
Virtual Pet Avatars:A set of playful pet avatars, plant, water, rice bowl, and birds that evolve with progress.
Food Mood Journaling: Log meals by photo or text, note how you felt, and mark each meal on- or off-path toward your goal.
Visual Calendar: Each ring represents a meal logged, skipped, or missed so users can see and reflect on eating patterns.
Challenges Tracker: A weekly view of challenges (meal-time, mood, and plate checks) and current progress.
Journey Tracker: A bird's-eye view of moods, feelings, and journaling across the year, month, and week.
Community: Connecting with like-minded users to share pet-growth progress and get encouragement.
Conclusion & Future Iterations
Routate shows how food journaling, meal planning, and community support can combine into a mindful-eating experience with a companion virtual pet to keep users engaged. My research found that food journaling can positively shift eating behaviors, and the app makes that process easier and more convenient. With further development and testing, it could meaningfully support young adults' overall health and well-being.