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- Age: 17 - 23
- Gender: roughly 45% Female, 55% Male
- Literate, and technologically adept** Good typing skills
- Experienced with using a web browser
- Generally solitary** Some not willing to meet and/or form dining groups with strangers
- May pset in a study group and sometimes eat with them
- Eating habits vary per living group
- Very frequently multi-task.
Users on a Meal Plan
General Notes:
- Eating Habits** May share at least some meals with large numbers of people
- Might have some limited choice in what they eat
FSILG Notes:
- Eating Habits** Shares meals with large groups of friends
- Eats at the same location for every meal-plan prepared meal
- Usually has some say in what food is prepared** Usually only 1 menu per meal though
- May not be able to find out the menu before a meal
- Usually has access to communal food in order to cook with on occasion
- Usually has access to nice cooking environment (commercial grade kitchen, lots of pots/pans, etc.)
- Persona:** Name: Andrew
- Age: 20 (Sophomore)
- Course 9
- Gets dinner 6 nights a week and lunch 6 days a week (if he goes back to his house)
- Has to cook on one night of the week as part of a cooking team
- Sometimes cooks on the weekends
- Travel time is about 20 mins from campus
- Likes watching movies
- Uses Facebook a lot
- Checks email a few times a day
- Knows how to use a computer, but doesn’t know (or care) anything about how it works
- Lives at the house and has his own fridge in his room*** his personal fridge is usually relatively empty
MIT Dining Plan Notes:
- Eating Habits** Eats in a large dining hall with other students
- May eat in a small group in this larger crowd
- Has very little say in what food is served** However, usually can choose from a variety of options among the food served (i.e. several menus available)
- Can find the menu in advance on the MIT Dining website
- Exceptions to the above exist: some students on the required MIT Dining Plan don’t eat at the dining halls all the time, choosing instead to cook for themselves
- Persona:** Name: Betty
- Age: 20 (Junior)
- Course 7
- Lives in McCormick
- Doesn’t mind the new mandatory meal plan*** Really doesn’t like cooking
- Generally stays in her own dorm for meals and eats with other people on her floor
- Occasionally goes to another dorm if a lot of her friends are going
- Has a personal fridge which is usually stuffed with leftovers
- Athletic and really active in IM sports
- Doesn’t do varsity sports because she prefers just playing for fun with friends
- Relatively outgoing
- Very computer savvy*** Knows enough programming to hack small odds and ends on the side
- Checks Facebook and Twitter with her phone a few times a day
- Checks e-mail every 8 mins or so
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- Can more carefully monitor what they eat (and how much they spend on it)
- Seem to generally be willing to splurge every once in a while to get higher quality ingredients
- Often motivated to cook because it’s much cheaper than going out or buying in to the MIT meal plan
- Eats either alone or with small groups of friends/neighbors
- Goes to cooking websites for recipes, etc.** (usually have just one that they really like)
- Persona:** Name: Christina
- Age: 18 (Freshman)
- Wants to be course 6.3
- Cooks for herself because she’s pescetarian (vegetarian + fish)
- Really enjoys cooking with/for groups of people*** Tries to organize meals usually about once a week
- Has easy access to a basic kitchen on her floor
- Doesn’t have her own fridge because there’s plenty of space in the communal fridge/freezer
- Keeps a drawer well stocked with spices and seasonings
- Goes grocery shopping twice a month
- Really likes card games, and plays with people on her floor regularly for study breaks
- Knows how to use a computer efficiently (including web browser), but doesn’t know anything about programming yet
- Checks email once a day
...
- Have a huge say in what they eat, but less of a say in what ingredients go into what they eat.
- Don’t always know nutritional information about food consumed** Might not care
- Spend more on food than people who cook all the time** It’s usually more expensive to eat out
- Goes out once in a while with small groups of friends
- Orders food through websites like CampusFood.com, etc.
- Persona:** Name: Dave
- Age: 21 (Senior)
- Course 8
- Goes out to eat at Pour House on Saturdays with a group of other course 8 seniors
- Orders food every 2 or 3 days, and saves the leftovers for the days in between*** Generally orders large quantities of food, like a large pizza or a large dish of pasta or chinese food
- Has a personal fridge to store the food in
- Always looking for a good deal on food, and uses online coupons*** Also uses sites like BuyWithMe or Groupon for discounts
- Really into console gaming
- Plays a lot of Halo with a group of friends in his dorm
- Uses computer a lot; checks e-mail constantly
- Can type quickly
- Checks facebook maybe once a month. Doesn’t know what Twitter is. Never goes on Youtube
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- Enter information pertaining to the food eaten, such as:** Type of meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, other)** Date** What food items were eaten*** User can optionally choose this from the list of food in possession* Optionally for each food item:** Amount of item eaten** Food group that item belongs to** Calories** Calories Cost
- Submit information
- As an alternative to the above, if a user is a member of a Group (see section IV below), user can simply import a Group food entry to own food log** User can further edit this entry once it is imported (e.g. to delete items he or she did not actually eat, or to add items)
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- Enter information pertaining to the food eaten, such as:** Type of meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, other)** Date** What food items were eaten** * User can optionally choose this from the list of food in possession* Optionally for each food item:** Amount of item eaten** Food group that item belongs to** Calories** Calories Cost
- Submit information
Possible errors:* Admin enters a wrong food item
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Though our potential users would not use our intended service, they told us problems that were relevant to them. The student at BC wanted to be able to track her food intake, nutrition, and food costs easily. She said she used to keep track of these details on a spreadsheet, but it was too clunky to use. Thus, we came up with the idea of the food log. The student at pika told us about problems with planning food for a large group of people, and requested the ability to list menus for the house, arranging for late dinners (when people can’t make it to dinner, they request food to be set aside for them), and for signing up to do kitchen duties. To serve this population, we added the ability to create “Groups,” which allow people to share food logs (since they eat some similar meals) and aggregate their communications about food. This functionality could be useful to all FSILG’s that have a house meal plan.
Domain analysis 
Most of the labels in this domain analysis are fairly self-explanatory. The “Student With A Meal Plan” user class are students who have a dining plan that’s mandated by their living group (i.e. fraternities, sororities, independent living groups, and dorms). Some living groups do not have a meal plan and many students decide to provide for their own housing, so they would fall into the category “Student Without A Meal Plan.” Some relations in the diagram use the word “manage.” That includes the tasks of creating, reading, updating, and deleting parts of the target. An “Entry” is a record of what a user has eaten and its cost.