Aizawa Kiyoharu, Maeda Kazuki, Ogawa Makoto, Sato Yohei, Kasamatsu Mayumi, Waki Kayo, Takimoto Hidemi
Department of Information and Communication Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Department of Information and Communication Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2014 Mar;8(2):203-208. doi: 10.1177/1932296814522745. Epub 2014 Feb 14.
The health care field is focusing considerable attention on dietary control, which requires that individuals record what they eat. We have developed a novel smartphone application called FoodLog, a multimedia food recording tool that allows users to take photos of their meals and to produce textual food records. Unlike conventional smartphone-based food recording tools, FoodLog allows users to employ meal photos to help them to input textual descriptions based on image retrieval. In this study, we conducted usability experiments to evaluate the routine daily use of FoodLog systems with and without image-based assistance. We produced 2 food recording tools: FoodLog with image-based assistance (FL-I) and FoodLog with text input only (FL-T). We recruited 18 university students (age = 18-24 years), all of whom performed food recording for the first time. The participants used FoodLog on a daily basis for 1 month. In the subjective evaluation, FL-I had higher average scores for questions related to ease of use, fun, frequency of browsing, and intention to continue. In particular, the latter 3 factors received significantly higher scores with FL-I than with FL-T. In the quantitative evaluation, the daily average number of meal events and food records did not differ significantly between FL-I and FL-T. A detailed analysis of the individual records showed that 1 participant produced 3 times as many records using FL-I compared with FL-T. The subjective assessment showed that our new tool, which fully exploits the use of images, is a promising method for food recording.
医疗保健领域正相当关注饮食控制，这要求个人记录他们所吃的东西。我们开发了一款名为FoodLog的新型智能手机应用程序，这是一种多媒体食物记录工具，允许用户拍摄他们的餐食照片并生成文字性的食物记录。与传统的基于智能手机的食物记录工具不同，FoodLog允许用户利用餐食照片，通过图像检索来帮助他们输入文字描述。在本研究中，我们进行了可用性实验，以评估有和没有基于图像辅助的FoodLog系统的日常使用情况。我们制作了2种食物记录工具：具有基于图像辅助的FoodLog（FL-I）和仅具有文本输入的FoodLog（FL-T）。我们招募了18名大学生（年龄 = 18 - 24岁），他们所有人都是首次进行食物记录。参与者每天使用FoodLog，持续1个月。在主观评估中，FL-I在与易用性、趣味性、浏览频率和继续使用意愿相关的问题上平均得分更高。特别是，后3个因素FL-I的得分明显高于FL-T。在定量评估中，FL-I和FL-T之间每日餐食事件和食物记录的平均数量没有显著差异。对个体记录的详细分析表明，1名参与者使用FL-I生成的记录是使用FL-T的3倍。主观评估表明，我们这个充分利用图像的新工具是一种很有前景的食物记录方法。
