Nutract is an innovative app for the adoption of healthier eating habits based solely on Greek gastronomy and on traditional Greek products in general. The project is co‐financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH – CREATE - INNOVATE (project code: Τ1EDK- 00950).
Nutract targets the dynamic audience of people interested in gastronomic tourism as well as all those who are interested in improving their wellbeing through a healthy and balanced diet, matching subconsciously healthy diet with Greek gastronomy. It adopts an empathy-based approach paired with game mechanics to motivate users engage in a healthy eating lifestyle. Nutract shifts the focus away from recurring approaches typically employed by other applications which force people lose weight through tedious diet tracking and frustrating calorie counting. It emphasizes on creating long-term, sustainable outcomes by promoting and shaping a healthy, balanced diet through a fun, game-like experience which is based on a simple premise, “make a bet to change yourself while changing the world at the same time”. Nutract attempts to stimulate users’ empathic feelings by utilizing the potential ‘persona effect’ of a virtual companion that generates emotions as a response to users’ eating habits. The users challenge themselves trying to improve their own health levels, but even when they fail to do so they are awarded with the emotional benefits of giving food to charity. This way, Nutract offers a unique “win-win” opportunity for its users to not only create a long-term beneficial impact on their own overall health and lifestyle but also benefit the lives of those that are in dire need of nutrition.
Nutract emphasizes on creating long-term, sustainable outcomes by promoting and shaping a healthy, balanced diet through a fun, game-like experience. To this end, Nutract provides its users with:
(a) personalised recommendations on amount and type of nutrients required to achieve and maintain a healthy, balanced diet based on advanced health protocols and algorithms developed by healthcare professionals;
(b) spontaneous notifications and tips on how to further improve the user’s diet; and
(c) wide variety of meals from which the user can choose to ensure nutritional diversity in his/her diet, presented via visually appealing graphics.
Furthermore, with a view to create a fun and engaging user experience, Nutract immerses its users into a challenge-fuelled environment with the following features:
(a) flexible betting structure that utilises virtual Food Packs to allow users to make the commitment they prefer in terms of both time and money;
(b) motivating reward scheme employing an experience-based progression tracking system and awards in the form of badges that will account for any degree of success (e.g. Gold, Silver and Bronze badges);
(c) incentivising donation system that provides users the option to donate money for a charitable purpose making a positive difference in the world whether they win or lose their Nutract bet;
(d) empathic user interface employing a realistic and interactive avatar created and personalised by the user;
(e) easy and fun diet journal and food logging functions that employ user-friendly and intuitive controls (e.g. voice activated commands); and
(f) integration with mainstream social media and social engagement functions that allows users to compete and compare progress with friends including a dedicated social leader board feature.