Snack Scanner: UX Project
Help Kids Make Healthier Choices
Challenge:
Identify usability issues around how kids understand snack health and design a simple, engaging tool that works without a smartphone.
Deliverables:
Research summary, persona, task flow, wireframes, UI design, interactive prototype
Role:
Product Designer – Led research, UX strategy, and visual design. Collaborated with a 10-year-old user to co-develop and test the concept.
How It Started
This project began with my 10-year-old son’s STEM fair at school, where the task was to identify and propose a solution to a global problem. Like many parents, I offered to help — but our small idea quickly grew into something more. We talked about how kids often don’t know whether a snack is healthy or not, and how most don’t have phones or apps to help them decide.
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As we brainstormed, we realized we were addressing a much larger issue — childhood obesity and poor nutrition habits, affecting millions of children worldwide. We came up with a toy-like barcode scanner that gives instant, kid-friendly feedback, empowering kids to make better choices on their own. It became both a fun science project and the foundation for a real UX case study focused on independence, accessibility, and positive behavior change.
Project Overview
After the STEM fair, the idea stayed with me. The challenge of helping kids make healthier snack choices — without adult guidance or smartphone apps — felt too meaningful to leave as a school project. So I decided to develop it further as a full UX case study.
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I reimagined the original concept as Snack Scanner: a playful, standalone barcode reader that gives kids instant, easy-to-understand feedback about the snacks they choose. It’s designed for children ages 6–13, translating complex nutrition data into visual cues, sounds, and messages they can interpret on their own — promoting healthier habits through simplicity and delight.
Goals:
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Design a self-contained, toy-like device that functions without a phone
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Deliver nutrition feedback using expressive visuals, sounds, and animations
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Support confidence and independence in snack decisions
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Create an experience accessible to non-readers and younger users
User Testing
with Children Round 1
Do Kids Care if a Snack is Healthy?
To explore how kids make snack choices, we conducted informal interviews and observational testing with children ages 6–12 during after-school programs and lunch breaks.
We asked:
“Do you know if your snack is healthy?”
“Can I test it with my scanner?”
“It’s not healthy—would you exchange it for a healthier one?”
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Findings:
• Most kids didn’t care whether the snack was healthy.
• They were drawn to sweetness, fun shapes, and colorful packaging.
• Even after being told the snack was “bad,” they were generally not willing to switch.
Insight: Simply telling a child a snack is unhealthy isn’t enough to change behavior. A new strategy was needed.
Iteration
We used the results from Round 1 to guide updates to the scanner concept. The goal shifted from just providing health information to actively motivating better choices.
Adjusted Feedback Messaging
We made feedback more emotionally relatable:
“Too much sugar — this might make your tummy hurt.”
“You might feel tired after eating this.”
This helped connect choices to personal consequences kids could understand.
Multi-Level Feedback
We introduced a three-tier feedback system:
Green = “Great choice!”
Yellow = “Okay, but maybe pick something better next time.”
Red = “Try something else — this might not help your body feel good.”
User Testing
with Children Round 2
What Motivates Kids to Eat Healthy?
In the second round of testing, we focused specifically on motivation. Using the updated prototype, we asked:
“Would you change your snack if it could make you sick or tired?”
“Would you switch to a healthier snack if you could win a prize?”
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Findings:
• Health warnings made a few kids reconsider.
• The prize was the most powerful motivator.
• Kids loved the idea of earning badges, stickers, or unlocking fun animations.
• Expressive feedback (faces, sounds, lights) made the experience more engaging.
Final Insight: Kids respond best when feedback is emotional and reward-driven. This informed our final design: a snack scanner that turns healthy choices into a playful, motivational experience.
Understanding the User
User Journey Storyboard
This storyboard illustrates key moments in a child’s experience, starting with choosing a snack at school and ending with making a healthier decision using the Snack Scanner app. It highlights the child’s emotions, growing independence, and ability to understand food choices through instant, friendly feedback. The design encourages healthy habits in a way that feels fun, empowering, and easy to use without adult help.
Personas
I developed four personas representing key users in the 6–13 age range. These guided design choices around tone, interaction, and visual simplicity.
Maya — 8, Elementary Student
Wants to eat healthy but can’t read labels. Chooses snacks based on packaging.
Jamal — 11, Middle Schooler
Wants to be independent. Curious about health but doesn’t want adult supervision.
Lily — 6, First Grader
Just learning to read. Follows what siblings eat. Loves characters and color.
Diego — 12, Gamer & Tech Fan
Likes gadgets. Needs deeper feedback and something that feels “cool,” not babyish.
Ideate
Task Flow
I created task flows for two common actions children would take with the Snack Scanner:
• Scanning a snack to check if it’s healthy
• Understanding the feedback and deciding what to do next
To identify where kids might get confused or disengaged, I highlighted potential friction points—like unclear feedback, small buttons, or lack of audio cues—to guide interface and interaction design priorities.
Prototype Exploration
To understand how the scanner should feel in a child’s hand, we created an early physical prototype using Hey Clay (air-dry modeling clay). This helped us quickly test size, shape, and comfort with real kids — making sure it felt toy-like, but functional. It gave us valuable feedback before jumping into digital design.
Prototype
Wireframes
I sketched multiple layout and interaction concepts for the scanner interface and device feedback. The focus was on clarity, simplicity, and delight—using expressive icons, large buttons, and minimal text. These early sketches helped visualize how kids would scan, receive feedback, and learn through playful interaction, forming the foundation for wireframes and UI design.
For older kids (ages 10+), the experience may feel too basic, so a separate companion app will be available on mobile, offering a more age-appropriate interface and features. To bring the sketches into digital form, I used prompts generated with ChatGPT and the WireGen plugin in Figma to quickly create wireframes with AI. These wireframes were specifically designed for the phone app (not the scanner screen), accelerating the design process and allowing me to iterate visually while staying true to the original hand-drawn ideas.
Hi-Fi Prototype
After exploring multiple layout options through sketches and lo-fi wireframes, I created high-fidelity prototypes to reflect the final visual style and interaction flow. Below are key screens from the app, showing how the design evolved into a kid-friendly, intuitive experience with bold icons, playful feedback, and a clean, modern interface.
Conclusion
Snack Scanner began as a simple STEM project with my son, but evolved into a meaningful UX exploration of how to empower kids with healthy habits through playful, independent tools. Designing for children required rethinking usability, language, and feedback through their lens — not just adult assumptions.
Next Steps
• Refine the visual design of the scanner interface with more character-based animations for younger users
• Expand the feedback system to include “neutral” or “learn more” responses for greater nuance
• Begin designing the companion phone app with a more advanced interface and features tailored to kids 10+
• Integrate a real food rating database for prototyping with actual barcodes
• Explore options for a low-cost physical prototype of the scanner using Raspberry Pi or Arduino