Ø       User Account Database

u        User Information Table //user’s basic information

u        Disease Record Table // record the user’s disease information

u        Food Journal Table // record the user’s daily food information, including the supplement information, and this table will be renewed every half year.

u        Daily Summary Table // = [user + day + all nutrition factors], it’s the summary of Food Journal Table

u        Workout Journal Table // record the user’s daily workout information

u        Favorite Food Table // restore the Top 10 popular food of the corresponding month

Ø       Default/Pre-stored Database

u        Food // all nutrition factor

u        Disease // [sensitive factor + disease name], it matches the sensitive factor and disease

u        Restaurant // dish information, updated by each restaurant

u        Workout // all workout and exercise information

u        Supplement // supplementary nutrition factor, such as Vitamin C…

There is another database on the PDA side to store the corresponding user’s information, which includes the following tables.

u        User Information Table

u        Disease Record Table

u        Food Journal Table

u        Food Plan Table // the user can set his plan beforehand, if he forget to enter journal, system will apply the Food Plan

u        Food Calories Table // download from server, includes all the food calories, = [Food + Calories]

u        Sensitive Food Table // this is searched from server side, Disease Table. It records the user is sensitive to what factors.

u        Pill-taking Table // record the user’s pill-taking schedule

PDA side database stores the corresponding user’s information only. Server side database stores complete information.

Introduction part: describe the software (IS)

The scope of the users

1. Do you have PDA, or do you want to buy a PDA device in the coming years?

2. If you have PDA, are you willing to use the software?

(2. To restaurant: do you want to use the online service of this IS)?

Personal questions: incoming, job, disease?

3. Have you used such IS?

4. Do you want to use an IS to remind you to take pills?

5. Do you want to use an IS to track your food information?

6. We have proposed the following functions in IS:

(Give the rank to each function) – (the functions listed here)

6.1 There is a function (Eating Patten Recommendation) – (describe this function in brief), do you want to use this function?

6.2 …

6.3 …

…

…

7. How much do you want to pay for such IS if you buy? – list the range of fee

8. How much of the monthly fee you can accept? (List the functions in Q.6.X – online functions) – list the range of the charge fee

8. Recommendation to the IS

       Any new features you want?

Organizational

Impact

Value

Metric

Time Frame

Strategic

Increase the product awareness and brand image

Penetrate new target market

Increase market share from 20% to 40%

Increase nutrition advice features from 50% to 70%

Include restaurants, supermarkets as new users

24 months

12 months

12 months

Customer

Receive better services and comprehensive nutrition advices

Reduce journal data entry procedure from 5 steps to 3 steps

At least 5 nutrition tips per day compared with 2 originally

Nutrition advices come from diet, sport and medical three aspects compared to 1 originally

6 months

6 months

6 months

Financial

Increase revenue

Reduce cost of regular updating database

Charge $5 monthly each customer will increase revenue by 15%

$0 food database updating cost any more

24 months

6 months

Operational

Eliminate process of updating food database

No food database update process which will done by restaurants and supermarket themselves

6 months

Social

Increase awareness of healthy life style

Increase No. of customer by 20%

24 months

The original existing nutrition systems of the company provide customer the general functions which could also be found in other competitors’ products. As our proposed new features added nutrition system launches, the outstanding specialty would attract new customers to increase market share from 20% to 40% based on original pie, which would be achieved within 2 years. And, as new type of users involved in our proposed system, target market will penetrate into restaurants and supermarkets.

By improving the data entry efficiency of reducing the input procedure from 5 to 3, and giving more nutrition tips and reminders, our proposed system would definitely become more and more attractive. Moreover, we change our charging type from software renting payment one time forever to monthly payment. The overall revenue would increase by 15% in 2 years’ time.

As restaurants and supermarkets taking part in our proposed system, they’ll update their food database regularly all by themselves in order to attract customers for competition, we eliminate the database updating process, which would decrease the maintaining cost and data updating errors that would increase the efficiency of system’s operation.

From social perspective, the more customers using our system, the more aware of healthy life style in the society. This is our prospect in long-run.

2. Project Team:

3. Project Description: Introduction, Objective

4. MOV

       a. Identify the Desired Area of Impact

       1> Customer – care health; achieve the user’s health goal

-        Amount of PDA device user; amount of nutrition system users.

-        Help customer take care of health, and take of disease

       2> Financial

-        cost source: web server, nutrition information suppliers, registry capital(fixed cost), variable cost

-        assume 3 year

       3> Social

       4> Strategic

-        Create the brand image

-         

5> Operational

-        Let the users do less data entry 20% reduced, improve the entry efficiency

-        Convenient to let the users know their health condition

-        Restaurant can get data from the system, users’ preference

       b. Identity the Desired Value of the IT Project

              Benefit

              Users

              Restaurant

       c. Develop an Appropriate Metric

              - create the brand image

              -

       d. Set a Time Frame

5. Alternatives

       5.1 Pure online

       5.2 Pure PDA

       5.3 Internet-enabled PDA + server

Total cost of ownership

Total benefit of ownership

In this work, a nutrition system with Internet-enabled PDAs and web server is proposed, which can be used to keep track of user’s diet and workout history, generate warnings of unsuitable food based on users’ body information, and create periodic health reports.

The existing systems have the following main problems. First of all, somebody does not understand how to use the existing systems. To illustrate, the measurement of blood pressure is hard to certain users who do not how to know measure blood pressure. And the amount of workload is hard to measure. Second, the exiting systems do not motivate the users to enter data. Perhaps, the users forget, even detest, entering the data in certain days. Thus, the system cannot work out properly the result based on the incomplete data. Third, the existing systems do not provide notification for user under some situation. For example, when a diabetic orders a dish with high sugar, the existing systems do not give the user a warning.

The proposed system has four types of new services. Patient care service using notice and warning message to helps patients take care of their diseases. Food comparison service compare nutrition facts of different food that users want to choose from, and then recommend users of the more nutrient one. Tips service shows nutrition tips every time the system is activated. Online service includes Food recommendation, Eating pattern recommendation and Health report.

Features

Compared with other existing nutrition softwares on the market, our proposed system has more novel and creative features, that satisfy different users’ various requirements, besides the basic functions ， which has been mentioned in the background part.

l         Patient care service:

This function help patients take care of their diseases, by using notice and warning message.

n         The proposed system can remind patients of taking pills, or doing any recovery exercise on time. Notice message will automatically pop up when it is the time.

n         For patients with certain diseases, such as diabetes, or high blood pressure, the proposed system would remind them of what kind of food they can eat, and what cannot, by using warning message.

l         Food comparison service:

n         The proposed system can do food comparison. It would compare nutrition facts of different food that users want to choose from, and then recommend users of the more nutrient one.

l         Tips service:

n         It would show nutrition tips every time the system is activated, for purpose of endorsing users not to give up.

l         Online service:

Besides the software installed on the PDA, a server would be set up to provide various services for the PDA software.

n         Food recommendation: The server can analyze users’ inputs from the PDA system, and then tell the most popular food of each restaurant.

n         Eating pattern recommendation: the server can analyze users’ eating patterns, and then recommend the healthier one to other users or the more successful weight loss menus to different users.

n         Health report: the proposed system would have monthly or weekly health reports for the users. Users can also check their health status in the past, by sending request. These reports would be in graphics patterns.

Compared with other existing nutrition softwares on the market, our proposed system has more novel and creative features, that satisfy different users’ various requirements, besides the basic functions ， which has been mentioned in the background part.

l         Patient care service:

This function uses alter, notice, and warning messages to take care of patients.

n         The proposed system can remind patients of taking pills, or doing any recovery exercise on time. Reminding message will automatically pop up when it is the time.

n         For patients with certain diseases, such as diabetes, or high blood pressure, the proposed system would remind them of what kind of food they can eat, and what cannot.

l         Food comparison service:

n         The proposed system can do food comparison. It would compare nutrition facts of different food that users want to choose from, and then recommend users of the more nutrient one.

l         Tips service:

n         It would show nutrition tips frequently to endorse users, sticking to their goals.

l         Online service:

Besides the software installed on the PDA, a server would be set up to provide various services for the PDA software.

n         Food recommendation: The server can analyze users’ inputs from the PDA system, and then tell the most popular food of each restaurant.

n         Eating pattern recommendation: the server can analyze users’ eating patterns, and then recommend the healthier one to other users or the more successful weight loss menus to different users.

n         Health report: the proposed system would have monthly or weekly health reports for the users. Users can also check their health status in the past, by sending request. These reports would be in graphics patterns.

As a beginner to use a nutrition system, firstly, you need to know several things here:

General Function Terms

1.       Journal

Food Journal

In the food journal window, you need to add each kind of food you’ve eaten on daily basis. In action, please do the selection from general to specific description of meal, such as if you’ve eaten saute rice with egg, first select rice, then you should have seen the saute rice with egg record from our database, finally you just select it and add to the food journal. The food journal will automatically fulfill the nutrition facts’ part and calculate the total nutrients you’ve got.

Workout Journal

In the workout journal, you need to add each type of sports you’ve made on daily basis. In action, please select the sport name plus the time duration, such as firstly select jogging, secondly 30 minutes, you’ll have done all the user required entries. The workout journal will automatically fulfill the calories you’ve expended totally.

Supplement Journal

In the supplement journal, you need to add each supplement you’ve taken on daily basis. In action, please select the name of supplement and the quantity, such as Vitamin C, 2 pills. Then the record would be added into the supplement journal.

2.       Goals

In the goals window, you could set up your ideal weight, wrist and hip circumstances, daily calories intake constrain, and other medical measurements by entering the number.

3.       Analysis

Statistics

In the statistics window, the last week’s journal total nutrients statistics will be shown by default. You can also select the time period such as last two weeks or last month on your preference.

Charts

It is the graphical view based on statistics you’ve made. Also, charts can be adjusted by selecting the time durations.

Reports

If you want to know how many rice you’ve eaten for last two weeks, you can first select rice, then last two weeks as user entry, then the list of record related to rice and the total amount will be generated in a report on the screen. The report can be adjusted based on your preference.

Nutrition Terminology

1.        Standard academic nutrition formulas, based on which our system doing calculation are:

l        BMI (Body Mass Index)

l        Human Daily Calories Needs

l        Suggested Nutrition Facts Daily Needs

2.        Standard academic nutrition rules, based on which our system giving health advices are:

l        Food Pyramid

l        RDA (recommended dietary allowances)

l        Diseases and Medication Food Constraints

Databases

Our database is created from bellowing reliable data sources:

1.        USDA (provided by US government)

2.        FEHD (provided by HK government)

3.        Major Food Suppliers

4.        Restaurants

5.        Supermarkets

Our nutrition system will give nutrition advices from a balancing healthy diet perspective, which is observing comprehensive useful nutrition facts from various kinds of foods, and disputing all the harmful effects by calculating users’ personal health information.