THE ALLERGY SCANNER

Team Innovation

By Hisham Taj

WHAT IS IT?

Allergy Scanner app: Having trouble looking for the right food to eat which you aren't allergic to? Well welcome to the Allergy Scanner app we have developed. You have specific allergy and instead of having to read the whole ingredients of the item, you simply scan the barcode of the product via your smartphones and straight away comes up with the ingredients of that product and the specific allergy you have will come up in a bold font indicating that the product is unsafe for you to consume.

FOR EXAMPLE

This app is designed for anyone with an allergy, or for someone who looks after a person with an allergy. So it could be a teenager for example. Say this teenager has an allergy, but is buying something with his friends, and doesn’t have time to check the ingredients, or just can’t be bothered. When he eats it he could have a severe allergic reaction.

INSTEAD

Instead of this teenager having an allergic reaction they simply and quickly scan the barcode into the app, and if there is an allergen in the product, the app will notify the user.

HOW CAN YOU SEE WHAT THE INGREDIENTS OF SOMETHING ARE QUICKLY?Our aim is to help people when they are searching for allergies. It is estimated that 1 million people have allergies. These people must therefore look on the ingredients of everything that they buy

KEY INSIGHT STATEMENT

Many people find it long and tedious work to look at the ingredients of food. This app has the sole purpose of getting rid of problem.

MINI ELEVATOR PITCH

USER PROFILES

The majority of people who will use this app will be people who have allergies. However, having spoken to some parents, they said that they would probably use this app whilst shopping for their children who have allergies.

OTHER COMPETITORS

The app “Food guard” (this is available on the Google Play Store) is very similar to our idea. It contains a similar procedure to our idea, and seems to serve the same purpose. However, this app has been rated poorly (it was given a rating of just 2.1). Furthermore many people claim that the app is faulty. “Scanner doesnt recognise ANY food”… “Not useful” … “Doesn’t work.” These responses clearly demonstrate that many people aren’t happy with this app, so hopefully our app will be a good alternative.

OTHER COMPETITORS

Another possible alternative idea that has been invented is the app “CheckFood.” This app is also similar to our app, however, several people have complained about its lack of content, especially some people complaining that no food from Canada can be found. “No content” … “ No Canadian foods on list.” There have also been complaints that the interface for the app is outdated. This is why we believe we can make our app better than this.

MVP USER STORIES

We have showed this product to different people, and have removed a number of features. For example we removed the idea of having an account and storing the information in the account. Instead we decided to keep he information on the phone/tablet itself. This removes any unnecessary time trying to log in every time. Instead you can scan the food quickly and effiecently.

FEASIBILITY AND CONTENT

We have learnt that adding new pieces of content doesn’t always help, and can make the app harder to use, effecting the feasibility of the app.

CUSTOMER PLEDGES

We have promised our users that the app will not cost more than £1.99 and will be available on all major platforms (Apple, Android, Windows and Blackberry).

MARKETING STRATEGY

We plan to sell our app for £1.99, and hope to put in no advertisements. This is because we have asked a wide range of people who all feel that adverts ruin los of their favourite apps.