Insights & Reflections

Name: Quek Yew KitClass: 10/11Project Title: Weight Loss Education For Teenagers

Strength:

Singapore, being one of the countries in the whole whose youth have highest ownership of smart phones[footnoteRef:1] and as its economy continues to grow steadily[footnoteRef:2], we would expect the number of youth owning smart phones to increase. With the usage of a smart phone app, our proposal makes use of current trends to our advantage to appeal to our target audience. [1: Singapore results of its Young Asians 2010 survey, released bySynovate, one of the leading global research agencies. Singapore Management University. http://www.synovate.com/news/article/extra/20100802/YoungAsians2010_SGFactSheet_EN_Final.pdf (Accessed 14 October 2011)] [2: Ee, Jamie. The straits times, "Singapore economy to grow steadily: DPM Teo." Last modified july 31 2011. Accessed October 26, 2011. http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_696934.html.]

Further application

To further develop our strength, we can expand our scope of target audience to include adults as well and not just only secondary school students. Through increasing our scope to people of other age groups (fig 1), our mobile application will be able to guide more Singaporeans in losing weight healthily and effectively, thus allowing the benefits of our mobile application to experienced by more people. Besides going to just schools to convince students to use our application, we can perhaps collaborate with Health Promotion Board to promote our Mobile application or start a campaign with our mobile application theme Small-Big ME.

Students

Small-Big Me(secondary 1&2)

Working Adults

Elderly

Fig1 Diagram showcasing target audience expanding in scope

Limitation

Students may have the mobile application, but may not be willing or have the drive to follow through using the application throughout. We came to realize that using and following through as well as applying what the mobile application teaches and guides is a matter of choice, and student might not actually properly use it.

Solution

To rectify this problem, we can actually remind them through souvenirs which they constantly see or use. Using of this items are help to remind them constantly to apply what they have learnt to lose weight. For example, consider using refrigerator magnets (Fig 2) as souvenir items which contain statements with questions such as Have you exercised today? remind students to exercise whenever they open the refrigerator. This will encourage them to apply what they have learnt into practice.

[footnoteRef:3] [3: zazzle, "Diet Motivation Magnet, Stop Sign Exercised Today? ." Accessed November 3, 2011. http://www.zazzle.com/diet_motivation_magnet_stop_sign_exercised_today-147066523262250138.]

Fig 2. Example of a refrigerator magnet souvenir

We can also make the mobile application more popular through continual updates as well as addition of new features based on feedbacks(refer to Fig 3) on what more they want to see posted by them ensures that students are more interested in using the mobile application.

[footnoteRef:4] [4: Contactable - jQuery plugin to make contact forms." Last modified 13 november 2010. Accessed November 3, 2011. http://scriptmafia.org/modules/32473-philip-beel-front-end-web-developer-home-about-portfolio-blog-contact-contactable-jquery-plugin-for-contactfeedback.html.]

Fig 3 Example of Feedback Section of mobile application

Assumption

We assumed that students who play the board game and garnered high fitness points as a result will have a wide base of knowledge on how to lose weight effectively and will go on to apply the knowledge they have learnt from the mobile application. However having the knowledge and knowing how to answer the questions from the questions cards in the board game does not goes to show how much they will truly apply what they have learnt.

Solution:

We can actually conduct trips as well as simulate real-time how to apply the knowledge. For example in the supermarket section, we can simulate the whole event by making trips with them to local supermarket like NTUC(fig 3) to guide them in shopping for ingredients. While shopping for ingredients, we can actively use the application to check the calories each food has hence showing them how they can control their diet in the process of losing weight.

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