Using Mobile Apps to Enhance a Physical Product: The monkii App

Boulder CO—Good Nutrition Inc. & InspiringApps Partnership Creates an Accessible Meal-Planning App Meal-planning apps present unique accessibility challenges for users with disabilities. Ensuring apps are designed with accessibility in mind is not only the ethical and legal responsibility of brands—it also makes good business sense. “Accessibility has a clear ROI. With accessible apps, you attract a larger user base.” —CLARA BEAR, IOS ENGINEER, INSPIRINGAPPS The Good Nutrition Ideas app, My Meals, My Way, stands out in the saturated market of food and calorie tracking by focusing on enabling users to become their own nutritionists. Applying a science-backed, fun “plug and play” approach, it offers personalized meal planning for individual health management. Client Background The client, Good Nutrition Ideas, is a nonprofit organization committed to promoting healthy lifestyles. Their mission is to empower people with disabilities and older adults with nutritional support needs. The mobile app My Meals, My Way was created in collaboration with InspiringApps to aid in this mission, streamlining meal planning and responding directly to diverse and complex dietary needs. Project Goals & Challenges The primary objective of this project was to create a digital platform that makes meal planning accessible to everyone, including users with disabilities. Embracing WCAG, W3C, and Apple Accessibility for Developers, the team followed a strict and comprehensive list of standards, which included the POUR principles: Perceivable: Information is presented in multiple ways (for example, text descriptions for images, captions, good color contrast). Operable: Users can navigate and interact with the app using various methods (e.g., clear structure, descriptive links, and keyboard accessibility). Understandable: The app’s interface and content are easy to comprehend (in other words, clear instructions, consistent design, and plain language). Robust: It is compatible with various assistive technologies and user needs (e.g., descriptive metadata and accessibility testing). A key challenge involved structuring the founders’ extensive knowledge of food types and meal portions into a back-end data system that could be translated into a clear and accessible UI for users with assistive technologies. Design & Development Process The InspiringApps team—comprised of development, design, and project management professionals—worked hand-in-hand with Good Nutrition Ideas to bring the My Meals, My Way app to life. The success of our development process was driven by weekly check-ins with the client from start to completion, with design and development teams working closely together. The team used wireframes early on and conducted regular accessibility audits of the codebase and user interface, using cutting-edge Apple tools to ensure a comprehensive, efficient, and repeatable testing process. The app’s development was characterized by its iterative nature, allowing for ongoing improvements. Key questions were addressed throughout, such as the design and development approach stressing a user-focused methodology and regular pivot points to integrate feedback, including accessibility feedback. Inclusive Design Features The app development and design were driven by a commitment to both accessibility and user feedback. Inclusive features include: Custom Profiles: Users can create profiles unique to their dietary and eating needs, which adds a sense of personalization. Animated Tutorial Videos: Embedded videos guide users through using parts of the app. They include AI-generated voiceovers and captions for added accessibility. Dynamic Type: Compatible fonts and scalable UI elements give users the ability to set preferred reading sizes. Text Descriptions & Captions: All images include text descriptions for users with visual impairments, while closed captions and transcripts accompany video content. High Color Contrast: Additional tones have been added for higher color contrast, in case a user has that accessibility setting turned on their native phone. Operable Navigation: The app features a clear structure with headings and descriptive links and is fully navigable via keyboard inputs. Intuitive User Experience: The app is crafted to be understandable, with clear directions, consistent design, and plain language throughout the platform. “The content presented in the app is highly dependent on the user’s unique profile and needs, and there are clear actions that are suggested based on the time of day. I also implemented animated tutorials that guide the user on how to use certain parts of the app. So the storytelling piece is brought into that as well.”—BECCA COLLINS, UI/UX DESIGNER, INSPIRINGAPPS Rigorous Accessibility Testing To ensure the app’s accessibility for all users, the team employed a comprehensive testing approach that combined automated tools, accessibility audits, user feedback, and quality assurance (QA) across multiple platforms and teams. Results & Impact Empowering users to take control of their dietary needs, My Meals, My Way concentrates on nurturing self-sufficiency in nutrition and fostering support systems by enabling users to effortlessly share their dietary plans with caregivers, enhancing compliance and enjoyment of meals. Currently available for iOS and iPad devices, My Meals, My Way extends its reach with a free month trial, encouraging users to experience comprehensive support for healthy living first-hand. “Working with the InspiringApps team of designers and developers was an excellent first app experience for us. They were already familiar with accessibility issues in apps and app development, and they continued to learn and deliver on this app directed at people with disabilities. We anticipate working with them again, which is the best recommendation there is!”—GOOD NUTRITION, INC. The app’s development was partly supported by a notable grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), underscoring its commitment to accessibility and empowerment for individuals with disabilities. Get the App Improve your health and quality of life by simplifying healthy, balanced eating with My Meals, My Way. Download My Meals, My Way here, on the App Store.

The Boulder Watershed Collective is a Colorado nonprofit using apps to advance causes. The small nonprofit has a vital cause: as populations grow, climate changes and forests shift, it’s crucial to preserve the watershed. Beyond mitigation and restoration projects, the nonprofit offers education and engagement to empower environmental stewardship and inspire action.  Giving the community a free, immersive, and informative experience, the Take-a-Hike app was an ambitious project. Let’s explore. Innovation Within Reach Innovation in nonprofit experience design is often out of reach for smaller non-profits, but our design solves that challenge. InspiringApps created a cost-effective mobile app in partnership with Boulder Watershed Collective, offering an immersion into the Boulder trails system never before experienced.  Available for both iOS and Android, the free Take-a-Hike app is a trail guide in your pocket. The user experience is deeply mapped to the mission: concentrate on the natural beauty of Boulder’s trails, but learn about reasons to protect them, too. With InspiringApps’ environmental stewardship app design, users can enjoy hikes internet-free while tracking their progress and learning. Collaboration & Impact True innovation comes from shared collaboration and partnership. Technology decisions can be simplified and streamlined into one cohesive process with shared collaboration. Regarding the app design process, Boulder Watershed Collective shared:  “Thank you and the InspiringApps team for working with us on this and making the idea possible. I am not sure we would even have an app or an app of this quality without you and your team’s awesome work and collaboration.” Experiential Design on a Mission Experiential design goes beyond traditional design practices by considering the entire journey and environment in which the experience occurs. It aims to stimulate multiple senses to create a more immersive and impactful experience. Immersive Experience For nonprofits, digital, experiential design can create a strong impact and elicit positive change. By engaging multiple senses, Take-a-Hike offers an immersive experience that supports local climate innovators through novel ways that foster environmental stewardship. In addition to teaching hikers about their diverse environment, the entire experience educates users on the services and management decisions that aid the wetlands, forests, and mountains.  Interactive Features The app’s design has two key interactive features: a map and an audio narration. As it guides hikers to different learning spots along the trail, the app uses GPS mapping and audio playback from the user’s device to create a natural connection with the outdoors. As a result of the design’s innovations, users can visually learn about points of interest along their hike, and geographically triggered audio segments play at those same points of interest automatically.  Informative & Intuitive Visual Elements Visual elements are both informative and intuitive. When users select and begin a hike in the app, they see a map of their hike and the points of interest or stops along the way. As they hike to each stop, a details screen shows hikers where they are in real-time, info about that point, and the distance to the next stop. Customizable Audio Audio elements offer a high degree of control but a minimum interaction requirement to enhance outdoor experiences.  Users can control the audio from their phone’s notifications panel.  They can turn on an audio narration in the background, so there’s no need to interact with their phones during the hike.  When approaching stops, there is audio to help hikers appreciate their surroundings, followed by silence to enable hikers to use that information while taking in bird calls and mountain views. Sustainable Iterations Through Community Engagement Built in a way that makes adding additional hikes a nominal effort, the app has enabled Boulder Watershed Collective to exponentially grow its education and outreach beyond the small staff’s capacity. Partnering within the community, the team continues to add hikes and expand its reach. Educational Reach After initially releasing the Take-a-Hike app developed by InspiringApps, Boulder Watershed Collective received additional grants. One of those was to work with a school in Lafayette to guide a podcast creation experience with students. Students contributed content that has been integrated into the app. In a testimonial from the teacher, she said:  “The Boulder Watershed Collective took on the impossible. They transformed ninth graders with zero experience into podcasters. With endless patience and spectacular curricular materials, these experts led the students from ideation through a finished product. Along the way, they learned how to ask great questions, create mind maps, collaborate, and use podcasting programs. “At the end of the year, many of these students identified their work creating podcasts with the Boulder Watershed Collective as the most important experience of their academic year.” With the added Spanish translation, the app development experience has enhanced not just one set of learners but many who will follow.  Holistic Approach To Cost-Effective Technology Decisions When creating a nonprofit app, it’s important to take a holistic approach, considering different angles and solutions. Nonprofit organizations seek human-centered designs, but just as in the corporate world, there are also technical and cost aspects to consider.  The metrics for nonprofits differ because the end goal is impact, not profit. To create positive change, nonprofit apps use an innovative mix of: Grant or donor funding Technology Education Community engagement According to Brad Weber, CEO of InspiringApps, that cost difference can become the difference between having an app and not having an app—as many nonprofits know too well: “Our client received project bids that were six figures, which the nonprofit could not afford. With some creative app architecture, we were able to deliver an app for a fraction of that cost, which they were able to fund with government grants.”  A holistic approach addresses a user’s relationship with a mobile product and their user journey from start to finish. The challenge to deliver the innovation needed for the product’s success enabled our team’s creative solutions to come alive—and deliver the immersive experience at a cost that made the project possible. To create cost-effective yet innovative solutions, focus on the core features. Instead of building everything from scratch, explore existing tools, APIs, or software development kits (SDKs) that integrate with your app. This approach can save development time and costs while providing the necessary functionality. Creating Uniquely Valuable Impact InspiringApps is driven by the opportunity to design technical solutions for causes that help our community. Building an app can ensure your organization’s core mission is front, back, and center. Keeping costs down and creating an impactful app is within reach.  InspiringApps has built beautiful and engaging apps for not-for-profit organizations. We are dedicated to helping local organizations and not-for-profit clients bring their web and mobile app ideas to life at an affordable cost. Our goal is to support the growth and prosperity of our community.