Summary

Computational technologies and ideas are increasingly pervasive in human life.

Computers and smartphones have become the primary global communication mediums.
Technology has become so popular and advances are made so quickly that many people,
especially elderly adults, have given up on using technological devices; navigating a
computer for them is akin to a three-year-old child trying to build a 2,000-piece puzzle.
Technological advancements are moving so quickly that we do not even possess the time
to understand the user before implementation. Technology keeps evolving, but no one can
possibly use it most effectively if we cannot improve its design.

My main objective in my graduate studies is to identify the key problem leading to major
barriers between computers and social issues. In particular, I will study the design,
implementation, impact and broader implications of computing technologies in everyday
human activities, particularly regarding accessibility, educational technology, computer
science education and medical technology. If technology were to interact with these issues
in a more seamless manner, it would change people’s lives significantly and positively.

My passion did not develop suddenly. During my freshman year at Queen Mary University,
I was involved in several social issue workshops held by homeless charities. I remember
when several start-ups shared their ideas, one of which was a ‘homeless vendor machine’,
a vendor machine only for use by the homeless. The other was a ‘homeless GPS tracker’
to help people identify their locations and help them in time. Unfortunately, both start-ups
failed in the end, and they agreed that sometimes they were too optimistic about the
situation. I started to chat with the homeless whenever possible after I attended these
workshops, and I developed my own conclusion. These start-ups’ ideas were great, but
they only solved short-term problems. For the homeless, it was simply a new place to get
food, but it did not really help them. As well, this was the first time I learned that
understanding the user is more important than everything else. After my freshman year, I
embarked on an internship at Junyi Academy, the largest free online education platform in
Taiwan. I was working on the UX team to develop the new design of the platform. To
determine the optimal design, I conducted a series of user interviews and observations. In
addition, the results after we implemented the conclusion of the interview were astounding.
Swapping the order of the buttons on the navigation pane increased the click-through rate
significantly. Our site data also shows that users’ usage habit has changed after we added
a new indicator bar to tell teachers not to assign too much homework. These experiences
strengthened my belief that design can close the gap between humans and technology.

In my final year of study at Queen Mary, I jumped into the healthcare industry and decided
to determine why people do not use food diary applications successfully when they do use
financial applications with similar designs successfully, such as spending trackers. Food
and money are both part of everyday life, but people seem to ignore largely food-related
applications. I assumed the reason was likely that users do not need to count calories,
read weight maintenance tips and so forth; instead, what they need is an application that
allows them simply to record their food intake easily. This intuition was the genesis of my
final year project: the creation of an application that allows users to record what they eat
every day and that suggests what foods to eat in the future to remain healthy.

Over the next decade, the healthcare industry is predicted to experience phenomenal
growth. Based on my final year project, I have proposed an advanced version of a food-
intake application, and I expect to help people and restaurant owners to provide better
quality foods.
Detail – Entrepreneur Idea

In an increasingly globally connected and multicultural world, we all face problems when
eating out. A few examples are as follows: going to a restaurant and not being able to
understand various terminologies on the menu; being annoyed because there are no
pictures on the menu; or, for vegetarians or members of certain religions, the menu may
not label vegetarian- or religious-friendly foods. We need an application to deal with such
problems.

The application could help people decide what they can eat due to dietary restrictions,
what ingredients are in foods, and how the foods appear in reality. It could be a
smartphone application for both iOS and Android (at least for now) or for other future
technological devices. When people go to a restaurant, they could simply open the
application and find all the most important information about the restaurant’s menu. A
translator would always be available if the menu’s language differs from that of the user. If
the user is a vegetarian or has other dietary restrictions, the application would
automatically filter out the foods they cannot eat. Furthermore, with the help of augmented
reality (AR), images of the food could be provided by the restaurant so that users have a
visual reference directly on their phone. Finally, the most important feature of the
application would be to provide visualisations of relevant nutritional information and an
ingredient list directly in the application. This way, users can balance their intake, maintain
their nutritional profiles and pursue a better-balanced diet with the help of the application.

On the restaurant and owner side, the application could help them reduce the risk of
providing the wrong food, fewer waiters would be needed in the restaurant and the
owner(s) could reduce the time of designing the menu and promoting their restaurant.

The initial markets for this application are newly opened restaurants, especially restaurants
that are not well known. They are the ones hoping to grow their customer base as quickly
as possible, and with this kind of application, customers can see whether the restaurant’s
food matches their interests directly. This increases the rate of ‘customers willing to try a
newly opened restaurant’.

Our first priority will be to acquire as many installations of the application as possible, so
conducting promotion campaigns with restaurants and operators is necessary. People will
be attracted by the promotions, and once they see how easy and convenient the
application is to use, they will keep it forever, which is precisely what happened with Uber
and Uber Eats. Once people being downloading the application, we can pitch it to more
restaurants, grow larger and perhaps even secure cooperation with the government or an
NGO, as one of the application’s attractions is its help in promoting a paper-free world.

On the application side, we can gain profits by promoting our design team so that
restaurants are encouraged to hire us to design their menus for them. We could also
charge the restaurant and users with an acceptable fee to help maintain the quality of the
application and to fund future updates.

Currently, there are a few similar applications in the iOS App Store and on Google Play
that offer digital menus and allow restaurant owners to directly customise their menus on
smartphones so that users can view the menu on their smartphone when ordering.
However, I believe the problem with these current offerings is that their functions are not
enough for users; moving a paper menu directly to the smartphone does not substantially
change anything. And while some applications have added a language translation service,
which is a plus, it is still not enough. In the era of the IoT, everything should be integrated
together, and one of the most important aspects for connecting users with technology is
‘interaction’. Converging all the related interactions the user has to do when eating will
result in a very attractive application for the user.

Consider the following scenario: A customer is hungry and is looking for something to eat.
He opens up Google Maps to find the best-rated restaurant around him, walks into the
restaurant and the waiter tells him the restaurant is full. He opens up Google Maps again
and finds another decent restaurant close by. He walks into the restaurant and sits down.
The waiter, however, is apparently very busy and does not notice him sitting there, so he
has to ask the waiter again and again for a glass of water and a menu. Yet when he
receives the menu, it does not have any pictures on it and the names of the food are not
clear to him, so he has to ask the waiter for advice. When the food comes, he takes a
photo and shared it on Facebook. Finally, when he is finished eating, he has to call the
waiter over yet again for the bill and to pay with his card.

This is a rather simple case that happens to almost everyone in the world. Moreover, some
people are faced with an even more complex scenario because they are looking to control
their weight or diet; they may have to record their food, check its ingredients and figure out
relevant nutritional information before they order.

However, if we could integrate everything together—incorporating a rating feature in the

application, allowing customers to view and check nutritional information with AR, making
it so customers do not need to wait for the waiter to order and providing an avenue for
customers to pay directly on their phones—then the application is sure to be a hit and
appeal to a wide audience.

Human-Computer Interaction and Design (HCID) plays a big role in this application; in fact,
I came up with this idea by examining real-life interactions and thinking about how
improving such interactions could help people. When I design software, I always take into
consideration the accommodations between humans and computers in terms of both
software and hardware. Additionally, it is also important to make users feels comfortable
when using the application. A more usable application means more customers and, thus,
more profit.

From EIT’s HCID programme, I wish to expand my multidisciplinary interests in academic

research with EIT’s creative supervision. I am confident I have the technical skills to be a
successful developer. However, through taking interaction design–related courses and
interning in the industry, I have realised that my skills are not enough. I want to better
understand people and learn how to channel the power of design and technology to make
digital products that will revolutionise the way people live their lives. This is an endeavour
that no one can guide me in better than EIT. As part of the school’s creative,
interdisciplinary environment, I will continue to devote myself even more to technology’s
interaction with social issues like healthcare, education and social work.

Thank you for your consideration.