Vedātarian

Bring balance to your overall physical and mental health from the ayurvedic understanding of food and lifestyle with a personalised plan.

Individual Project

16 Weeks Duration

Advisors:
Nathan Shedroff
Maria Giudice

Key Terminologies

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian medicine still practised today. It is developed from the understanding that mind and body are connected. It comprises many practices including diet plan and other healthy lifestyle activities, aimed at bringing emotional and physical balance. 

Dosha

Ayurveda is built around the five elements of ether, air, fire, water, and earth. The unique combination of these elements come together to make up the doshas:

1. Vata
2. Pitta
3. Kapha

Prakriti

Prakriti is the individual's constitution, a manifestation of the three Doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha (also known as body type). Prakriti can be:

• Vata
• Pitta
• Kapha
• Vata-Pitta
• Pitta-Vata
• Vata-Kapha
• Kapha-Vata
• Pitta-Kapha
• Kapha-Pitta

Problem

Health-conscious people often encounter Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle but have a difficult time getting more information about it. The Ayurvedic ecosystem is large and complex, which makes it difficult to adopt.

94.6 %

considers Ayurveda to be an important element for a healthy living.

57.5 %

find it difficult to follow Ayurveda.

83.8 %

would like to have a digital assistant to follow Ayurveda.

*Based on a survey of 37 people, who already practicing Yoga or Meditation.

How Might We...

create a platform/service that helps newcomers follow a healthy lifestyle and develop habits based on Ayurvedic principles.

Challenges

● Creating a visual style to support the flow and relationship between various elements

● Making a system responsive and engagement-rich by helping users to identify Doshas

● Legitimizing concept through in-depth learning: reading published papers and talking with Ayurveda experts

Design Solution

Vedātarian is a lifestyle app which creates a custom diet and activity schedule based on body type (Prakriti) and fluctuations in the body (Dosha), targeting health issues through Ayurvedic remedies.

MOBILE APP

WATCH APP

Design Process

INTERVIEWS

3 Contextual Interviews of Ayurvedic Practitioners

JOURNEY MAP

Learning From Practitioners

• Experienced Ayurveda practitioners suggest inconsistency and pain points in adoption
  
  
• They continued practice which suggests that despite initial challenges, Ayurveda has a positive effect on their lives
  
  
• They become a practitioner because of their determination to stick with it
  
  
• Ayurveda practitioners have a diverse set of motivations and impacted them in different aspect of their well being

RESEARCH EXCERCISE

Focus Group Engagement Findings

In order to design the whole experience and features, I did a research exercise with two young adults who are also keen to learn more about Ayurveda and adopting it in their lives. Key Takeaways:

• Proof of authenticity is a must. From people's experience to Indian connection
• Seamless integration to food conscious and fitness conscious lifestyle
• Health and other variables tracking

CONCEPT TESTING

Concept

I tested a High-Quality prototype of the first app concept in order to receive feedback on infographic and colour choices along with the concept.

Testing Feedback

• Users find it visually interesting and connecting
• “It can be done with any with calendar app as well.”
• “It feels like a planner app than an Ayurveda app.”

Shiksha Thakur
Bay Area, California

Ayurveda Doctor
Pulse Diagnosis Expert

Lakshmi Ravindranath
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ayurveda Doctor
Pulse Diagnosis Expert

Key Takeaways

• Seasons and weather conditions effects Doshas and diet has to change accordingly
  
• Pulse diagnosis is a very definitive way to determine health issues along with Doshas, and hence needed to be part of the ecosystem
• One can identify Doshas with the help of heart rate, blood pressure, & body temperature

System Design

As confirmed by experts & secondary research, I designed a system to connect diet and lifestyle to the biometrics of the user via smartwatch. 

Features & Storyboard

The prototype for the app was created in Adobe XD

Onboarding

In order to generate the custom schedule, the app needs to know the user's body type, which the user can enter manually or answer a 10-question quiz.

Watch

In order to be more responsive to the health of the user, the app connects to the user's smartwatch to collect biometric data in real-time. 

Diet Notification & Recipe

The app will push notifications according to the user's custom-generated schedule, and will redirect to healthy recipes.

Dosha Detection

Whenever there is a fluctuation detected by the app from biometric data, it will send push notifications for recommended activities to restore balance.

Health Remedies

The user can input health issues they are having in the app. Based on inputs, the app will recommend certain remedies which will become part of the user's schedule.

Remedy Progress and Expert Help

There will be a progress bar in the app for each remedy to keep the user aware of their progress. The app will also prompt the user to talk to an expert in case the user find remedies ineffective.

Branding & Style Sheet

LOGO DESIGN

IN MOTION

COLORS

TYPOGRAPHY

BUTTONS

App UI

Calender

Future work

I am still receiving feedback on the design solution from Ayurveda doctors and experts. Pulse Diagnosis is the most popular way of identifying Prakriti and Doshas, hence this platform would be more effective within an established Ayurveda social ecosystem. This would allow the platform to improve itself with the support of accurate diagnosis from experts and machine learning from a significant body of data.

Reflection

This project taught me to never hesitate to think wild. Giving sufficient time for brainstorming ideas and asking for feedback has helped immensely in this project.

If visuals are playing an important role, it's a good idea to create a low-fi visual guide along with the concept to test if both work well for users.

While talking to experts, I learnt you need to be very clear in presenting the concept and its working to receive proper feedback and technical input.

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© 2019 Rajat Bagga,  All rights reserved