Foodvisor: The Good, the Bad, and the UX

A title image with the Foodvisor-avocado-character smiling and title "Foodvisor - the good, the bad and the UX"

I had a dream of an AI-powered calorie tracker

One of the simplest principles of weight loss is burning more calories than you consume. But tracking this has always felt like too much work. In 2022, I dreamed of an easier way to keep a food diary. In my blog post, ‘AI-Powered Calorie Tracker and Better User Experience,’ I imagined snapping a photo of my food and letting AI tell me what and how much I was eating. What a great user experience (UX) that would be!

A cartoon illustrating an idea of an AI-powered calorie tracking app.
My dream from year 2022.

Fast forward two years, and that dream is almost a reality! Enter Foodvisor, an AI-powered food diary and nutrition guide I’ve been using for four months. It’s the best calorie tracker I’ve tried, with smart features that make food logging less of a chore. While it’s not perfect, Foodvisor’s strengths in user experience (UX) make it worth exploring.

What Makes Foodvisor Shine?

Foodvisor’s standout features make calorie tracking faster and more enjoyable. Here are the highlights:

  • Photo recognition: It accurately identifies foods in pictures—as long as the items are simple and clearly presented (like in this video).
  • Barcode scanning: Recognizes many products via barcodes for quick logging.
  • Voice commands: Allows for hands-free logging of simple items (e.g., “pear, 100 grams”).
  • Frequent and favorite foods: Keeps them easily accessible for fast entry.
  • Recent searches: Speeds up logging for commonly used items
  • Macronutrients: It shows clearly the distribution of protein, fat, carbs and fiber

These features take the pain out of calorie counting and help users stick with the habit.

A screenshot from Foodvisor-app, showing an image of a meal and the accurately identified incredients.
Foodvisor has pretty accurately identified the particular food items in this image.

Beyond food tracking, Foodvisor also offers bite-sized courses on healthy habits and tips for tracking other health indicators. These lessons are practical and help ensure I’ll maintain many healthy routines even after I stop logging calories.

Opportunities for Improvement

1. Portion Size Accuracy

Foodvisor sometimes struggles to estimate portion sizes accurately from photos. While the app offers hints for better estimation, users often need to measure manually for more accurate results. This extra step might discourage some users.

A screenshot from Foodvisor-app, showing an image of a meal, but the estimated amounts are a bit off
The items are identified but the amounts are not entirely accurate.
The same items with actual and estimated amounts, and their difference (in grams).

2. Integration with Fitness Apps

Foodvisor doesn’t sync well with all the apps that track calories burned. It is supposed to sync with Google Fit. But as a Fitbit user, I’d love for these apps to communicate so I could see a complete picture of “calories in versus out” without resorting to a spreadsheet.

A screenshot from Foodvisor-app, that shows the burned calories: 0
Foodvisor does not know about my burned calories.
A screenshot of Fitbit-app, that shows the burned calories: 2155
Fitbit does, but isn’t synced with Foodvisor

3. Recognition of Mixed Meals

Like many food trackers, Foodvisor struggles to identify mixed dishes or meals that aren’t neatly arranged on a plate. This limits its effectiveness for users who frequently eat such meals.

A screenshot from Foodvisor-app that shows a picture of a food that Foodvisor couldn't know exactly what is in it.
Close but not quite! A food that looks like this is more difficult to identify. Also there is no way ANY app could know that the pasta is whole grain and the minced meat is low-fat.

Small Fixes to Enhance the UX

While big fixes may take time, here are smaller tweaks that could improve the app’s user experience:

User control and flexibility

  • Allow users to modify the amounts of the ingredients the app has recognized in a photo of a whole meal
  • Allow users to analyze photos from their camera roll and save in-app photos
  • Allow users to switch languages within the app. (An update forced my app’s language to be Finnish. Due to sometimes poor translations I would have preferred English)

Accuracy and Logging Improvements

  • Add an option to log calorie totals without specifying foods (e.g., ‘Dinner: 450 kcal’)
  • Improve search accuracy for better logging
A screenshot from Foodvisor-app showing search results that are not very accurate
The search results for “coffee” are not very accurate.

Less spreadsheets

  • Save daily self-evaluations in-app (and not to a separate spreadsheet like the app currently recommends)
  • Show users the self-evaluation trends and highlights

Accessibility

  • Increase text-background contrast to enhance accessibility
A screenshot from Foodvisor showing an example of insufficient text-to-background-contrast
White on grey background doesn’t have enough contrast.
A screenshot from Foodvisor showing another example of insufficient text-to-background-contrast
White on light green background doesn’t either.

Reaching the Goal—But Where’s the Celebration?

Foodvisor was so pleasant to use that I stayed consistent, adopted healthy habits, and ultimately hit my weight-loss goal! But when I did, the app didn’t acknowledge this milestone. A simple celebratory message or confetti animation would have been a delightful touch!

Final Thoughts: Foodvisor’s Recipe for Success

Foodvisor isn’t perfect, but it’s the best calorie tracker I’ve tried. Its smart features, helpful tips, and playful design make food tracking feel less like a chore and more like an adventure. With a few tweaks, it could become a true game-changer for health-conscious users everywhere.

So, would I recommend Foodvisor? Absolutely. Just don’t forget to bring your own confetti for when you hit your goals—because you will!

An accurate illustration of the author after reaching her goal ;-)

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