My Meals, My Way proves what’s possible when accessibility is the product.
Everyone deserves the tools to make healthy choices. Yet millions of people with disabilities and older adults are often left behind by mainstream health tech.
Good Nutrition Ideas (GNI), a women- and disability-owned social benefit business founded by experts in health equity, identified this critical gap in the marketplace. Most existing meal-planning apps failed to provide the deep personalization and accessibility features necessary to support independence and personalized nutrition for these populations.
Building upon their award-winning MENU-AIDDs research, GNI envisioned My Meals, My Way as a personal nutritionist that would be empowering, inclusive, and intuitive for all users regardless of ability.
Translating complex nutritional science and diverse user needs into an accessibility-first experience meant embracing the POUR principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) and conducting regular audits with Apple’s tools.
My Meals, My Way was designed with accessibility as its foundation. To empower users, the app allows individuals to create personalized profiles tailored to their unique dietary needs and preferences.
Learning within the app is supported through multi-format animated tutorials featuring both voiceovers and captions, catering to different styles. An adaptive interface ensures usability across abilities, incorporating features such as dynamic type for adjustable text sizes, high contrast options, and full keyboard navigation.
Throughout the application, simple, clear communication using plain language makes complex nutrition concepts understandable and accessible. This human-centered design transforms meal planning from a potential barrier into an empowering daily tool.
The InspiringApps team worked hand-in-hand with GNI through weekly check-ins from concept development through launch and beyond, ensuring nutritional expertise and technical implementation remained perfectly aligned. What began as app development evolved into an enduring technology partnership focused on advancing health equity through inclusive design.
”The InspiringApps team has been amazing to work with. They did an excellent job creating our first app and have remained supportive partners and collaborators as our small business moves forward. [The team] has recently supported us through collaborating on grant proposals, further demonstrating their commitment to supporting our work to improve the health of vulnerable populations through technology.”
—Bethany Rigles, Good Nutrition Ideas
My Meals, My Way is making a measurable difference across communities nationwide.
The Dayle McIntosh Center in California calls it ”a critical step forward” and ”a transformative approach” to nutrition for people with disabilities. The Eugene Family YMCA integrated the app into its Diabetes Prevention Program, finding it ”useful and valuable” for ”self-directed, personalized meal planning” and plans to present it to the Centers for Disease Control. In Maryland and Virginia, Makom uses the app to support ”self-determined and -directed” ”healthful independence” for 250 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
This powerful community validation, recognition including a partnership with Special Olympics North America, and support from a National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research grant via the Shepherd Center’s App Factory, demonstrates the wide-reaching impact of My Meals, My Way.
When accessibility is the mission, not just a checkbox, the result is technology that truly empowers. My Meals, My Way creates an intuitive experience that enables independence and supports health for all users regardless of ability.
