An evaluation of a meal planning system: ease of use and perceived usefulness

Unhealthy eating is an increasingly important problem in the western society. Our approach to this problem is to provide a meal planning system giving recommendations of suitable food recipes, taking important factors such as nutrient content, cost, variation, etc into account. A user controls how the system takes these factors into account through settings after which the system creates an optimal meal plan. The user can then iteratively refine the settings until a satisfactory meal plan is produced. The system is evaluated empirically in terms of ease of use and perceived usefulness, factors crucial for eventual user acceptance. The results are positive, and several interesting possibilities for future system improvements are discussed.