Blogs

Week 2 was a mixture of wrapping up week 1's activities and beginning week 3's. For week 3 I went through my handful of downloaded applications and using the HIMSS usability scale rated a handful of categories such as "I would use this application in the future" and "I thought the various functions in this system to be well integrated". Most of the applications I had come across were really cool. Fooducate and FoodStreet were two of my favorites yet when it came to actual nutritional content the USDA Foods Application outdid them all with it's myriad of categories and food choices.

For this week, we still were making comments on the apps that we researched during the previous week. Part of our assignment this week was to make comments on the usability aspect of each app using the "Himss" scale. Some of the questions included thing such as, I would like to use this system frequently, I found the system unnecessarily complex, I thought the system was easy to use, etc. We ranked each of those questions on a scale of 1-5, one being completely disagree and five being completely agree.

Recently we've been working on reading some articles and doing research on all of the work and science that actually goes into creating a mobile application. The findings have proven to be very interesting and mind blowing - the coding and computer science behind these apps are very intricate for a person like me! Beyond those readings, we've also been working on researching some current apps that claim to help with healthy eating. In my findings most of the apps counted calories or scanned barcodes to provide nutritional information.

This week I had only a handful of goals, many of which involved reading materials about designing appropriate applications. I have to admit reading a mountain of text can be a bit intimidating but I found some of the stuff to be really useful and, to be honest, I had no idea how much thought went into an application. Everything from the information you provide to the color scheme needs to have a meaning and reason.

Hello there!

My name is Madison Kramer, I'm currently a senior at the UofA. My major is now General Studies with a strong emphasis in Nutritional Sciences. I also have three smaller emphases in business, spanish and a sports side. I'm so excited to be a part of this research team this year and can't wait to see where this project takes us! On top of this research job I also have an internship with a local company called Lilly's Table which is an online food planning service. I will be focused on the marketing side and doing community outreach as well as social media services.

Hello! I’m Chelsea Doll, a junior at the University of Arizona and majoring in Public Health and minoring in Nutritional Sciences. Besides working on this amazing CREU project this next year I also have two jobs, one at In-N-Out Burger and the other at Famous Sam’s. As I’m sure you’re questioning (because I question it too) I do work with bad-for-you burgers and fried bar food even though both my major and minor would balk at the thought (the forefathers of these disciplines are probably turning in their graves).

Introduction and Biography

Your first assignment is to begin by getting comfortable with the blog software and posting a little bit about yourself.

Please post your bio as a first blog entry. Here's an example ...