Evaluation of Two Mobile Nutrition Tracking Applications for Chronically Ill Populations with Low Literacy Skills

In this chapter, we discuss two case studies that compared and contrasted the use of barcode scanning, voice recording, and patient self reporting as a means to monitor the nutritional intake of a chronically ill population. In the first study, we found that participants preferred unstructured voice recordings rather than barcode scanning. Since unstructured voice recordings require costly transcription and analysis, we conducted a second case study where participants used barcode scanning or an Integrated Voice Response system to record nutritional intake. We found that although the latter input method provided participants with a faster method to input food items, participants had difficulty using the system despite training.