Mobile apps have changed the way we do things. From entertainment to healthcare, everything these days can be managed by the smart gadgets owing to the apps within it. Even in the fitness segment, mobile apps have managed to create significant headwinds. App-based food and nutrition tracking tools have become quite common in modern lives. According to industry statistics, more and more users are eager about using a diet and nutrition mobile app in their everyday lives.
Percentage of US Adults Willing to Use an App for Tracking Diet and Nutrition, 2020
(Source: Statista)
Creating a fitness and nutrition app for health-conscious users can be a lucrative option for startup owners, at present. People are turning quite serious about their health and fitness and in such a scenario, launching such an app can be a great app idea.
How a Diet App is Helpful for End Users?
A diet and nutrition mobile app can help individuals in adopting a fit and healthy lifestyle. By keeping track of their dietary habits and providing personalized tips, it can allow users to achieve their fitness goals. A mobile app can help with the following aspects:
- Preparing a balanced and nutritious diet chart
- Suggesting healthy food options.
- Keeping a log of daily calorie and water intake
- Assisting in weight loss plans
- Monitoring daily physical activity
- Preparing a healthy grocery list
Critical Features You Need in a Diet and Nutrition App
As you can see, a diet planner mobile app can be quite useful for an end-user and an amazing opportunity for any startup entrepreneur. But before you move ahead with health and fitness app development, you should have a clear idea about the features your app will offer. Here are some useful features that every diet and nutrition mobile app must have:
1. Dietary Suggestions
The main goal of a diet and nutrition mobile app is to help an individual eat healthily and improve eating habits.
So, your app should have an interactive feature that suggests what a user should consume daily based on his body weight, meal preferences and healthy meal plans. This will make users hooked to your app.
2. Physical Activity & Food Intake Logger
Along with offering dietary suggestions, your app should have a feature that can record a person’s daily physical activity and calorie intake. This can be done by creating a food and activity log within your mobile app.
A database can relate every activity and food item with the calorific value that would give users an idea about how much they should walk and eat to achieve their fitness goals.
3. Connectivity to Wearable Devices
Your mobile app should also be able to connect with a wearable device like Fitbit, Apple Watch or Android Wear. These wearable devices keep a track of health, fitness and physical activity of a user.
By having a connectivity feature that links your app with these devices, you can easily create a detailed daily chart about physical activities using the sensors of a smartwatch.
4. Push Notifications
Your app should also be capable of informing users about various things through push notifications. Push notification feature not only improves the engagement and retention rates but also provides critical information to users when it is most needed.
5. Daily Activity/Diet Analyzer
Just like an activity tracker, a diet analyzer within your diet planner mobile app would give users deep insights on how good they are doing with their goals and how soon will they achieve desired results.
Your analyzer should provide valuable data in an easily understandable format so that users can properly utilize the feature.
6. Live Chat with Dieticians
This is a great feature with the potential to increase the engagement rates and interactivity of your mobile app manifolds. You can include a live chat feature in your diet and nutrition mobile app that connects a user to a real dietician.
The dieticians can provide valuable tips and diet plans that can help users in their fitness journey. You can add this feature as a subscription for users, giving you a chance to monetize from the add-on facility you are intending to give to your users.
7. Barcode/QR Code Scanner
Adding a barcode scanner that helps users find out the calorific value of every product they buy inside the store is a great way to keep users motivated. Users can use the feature to scan the barcode of food products and get detailed information on how it can help (or not) them in achieving their fitness goals.
8. Social Sharing Features
Social media is a great motivator and influencer. By adding a social sharing feature in your mobile app, you can make users commit to their goals. Users can share their goals, daily progress, and diet plans with friends over social media. This will have multiple benefits. Firstly, users will continue to stick to your app, and secondly, the more users will come to know about your diet and nutrition app.
Other Important Features to Focus on While Development
- Intuitive UI
- Past Diet History
- Integration with Google Fit/ Apple HealthKit
- Healthy Shopping Assistance
- User Feedback
- CMS
Process of developing a Diet and Nutrition App
If you are thinking to move ahead with iPhone/Android health and fitness app development, you need to have a strategic plan along with a clear process for success. Here are some steps that can help you build a diet and nutrition mobile app:
1. Planning and Roadmap Development
Before moving ahead with anything, you need to have a clear plan and functional roadmap about your development process. This should essentially include:
- The features you wish to have in your mobile app
- Your target audience
- Your development plan
- Your goals from the development process
- Rollout strategy
Once you clear these basic things, you can move ahead with the documentation part.
2. Technical Documentation
Technical documentation will help you create a functional blueprint that would document everything you planned in your roadmap. This will ensure that everyone on board has a clear idea about what to do and what to expect from the end results.
3. UX/UI Design
Once you are done with the planning and documentation part, you need to focus on the app design. Your app should be interactive, intuitive, and engaging. Also, you need to make sure that all the features in your mobile app are easily accessible and understandable. Maybe you should think of going with a minimalist design. Once you get in touch with an interface designer, he/she will help you finalize a wireframe and the UI design based on which the development can begin.
4. Development
The development phase would involve working with developers for Android or iOS app development. All the features will be coded, and your mobile app would be made functional with the UI design as a base. You need an expert development team to ensure you get the best results from the development activity.
5. Testing and Deployment
Once everything is done, the last part is to test your mobile app before the final deployment. Testing can be done on various parameters. Your main goal should be to eliminate bugs and ensure that your app works flawlessly in various situations.
How much will the app development cost?
To analyze the cost of developing a health and fitness mobile app, you may need to get in touch with an expert mobile app development company. Generally, the cost of development depends on the features you need in the mobile app and the team you look forward to engaging for development.
For a diet and nutrition mobile app, you would need the following members in your development team:
- Project manager
- UI/UX designer
- Developer
- Testers
Cost of Engaging an Expert Team
The cost of diet and nutrition planner app development also depends on the complexity of your concept and the place you wish to hire mobile app developers from. You can either think of building an in-house team or engaging an offshore diet planner app development team as it is generally cost-effective in the case of startups. The actual costs of building the app can be ascertained by connecting with a professional diet planner app development company.
Wrapping Up
Creating a nutrition app in the healthcare domain is not an easy task. You need an expert team having knowledge and experience of building and deploying a full-scale healthcare app. If you don’t wish to waste your valuable resources and money, you should only engage a professional team with experience of working on such apps. At Web Optimization, we have been helping healthcare startups build stunning apps for years. Get in touch with our expert nutrition app developer to discover the potential of a diet and nutrition healthcare app and kickstart your entrepreneurial journey, today.
