NutriDiary, a Smartphone-Based Dietary Record App: Description and Usability Evaluation

Area of Science:

• Nutrition science
• Public health
• Digital health

Background:

• Estimating usual dietary intake requires repeated short-term dietary assessments.
• Smartphone applications offer a modern approach to collecting dietary data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the NutriDiary smartphone application for collecting weighed dietary records (WDRs).
• To evaluate the usability and acceptability of NutriDiary among German users.

Main Methods:

• NutriDiary allows food entry via text search, barcode scanning, or free text.
• A study involved 74 participants (experts and laypersons) completing a 1-day WDR and a sample meal using the app.
• System Usability Scale (SUS) scores were calculated, and predictors for SUS were analyzed.

Main Results:

• The median SUS score was 75, indicating good usability.
• Older age was associated with lower usability scores.
• Participants generally preferred NutriDiary over traditional paper-based methods.

Conclusions:

• NutriDiary exhibits good usability and acceptability.
• The app is a promising tool for dietary assessment in epidemiological studies.