Lunchie / MA Project
Fostering Cultural Awareness in Children through shared meals
✶ Type: Speculative Concept / Academic Project
✶ Duration: November → December 2025
✶ Team: Suchita Pallavi & Sanket Bhatnagar (Research), Mark Magnaye & Aira Purificacion 🙋🏻♀️ (UI/UX Design)
Children's food choices shape their cultural understanding.
Research shows that early food experiences have a strong influence on how children perceive different cultures and form their worldview. When children try a variety of foods from different cultures, they are more likely to:
➡️ Develop positive attitudes toward other cultures
➡️ Show greater empathy toward people from diverse backgrounds
➡️ Engage less in culturally insensitive behaviors, including bullying
The Problem
When kids eat only a limited variety of foods, they may miss out on understanding and appreciating different cultures. This lack of exposure can unintentionally lead to cultural biases, misunderstandings, and social exclusion.
Our Goal
To encourage children to explore diverse cuisines in a fun and engaging way, fostering curiosity, respect, and inclusiveness toward different cultures, not just through food, but as part of their broader worldview.
Product Vision
We envision a meal-matching app that brings cultural exchange to the lunch table. Inspired by the swipe-and-match simplicity of dating apps, this tool allows parents to upload home-cooked meals and match them with others in the same class. Teachers manage the exchanges at school, handing out meals and helping facilitate the experience.
Target Groups
➡️ Parents:
Prepare and submit meals, helping create a diverse menu for classroom exchanges. Their choices shape what cultural experiences their children, and classmates. are exposed to.
➡️ Teachers:
Manage the app in school and organize the meal swaps, creating a structured environment for children to explore different cultures through food.
Designing the Experience
We began by sketching ideas during our brainstorming sessions, then turned them into wireframes to explore the app’s structure. These wireframes were presented in class, where we received feedback from both peers and our professor.
With each round of feedback, we updated and improved the design. Our original concept was inspired by dating apps. Instead of matching people, we wanted to match children's lunchboxes. While the idea was fun and creative, it came with some usability issues. Through several iterations, we refined the experience to make it more practical and user-friendly.
The Home Screen
This page is designed to be the main hub where users can easily access everything they need.
It includes:
➡️ A clear call-to-action card that encourages users to take part in the meal exchange
➡️ A status bar showing their current progress in the exchange
➡️ A “Today’s Menu” section that adds excitement and inspires participation
Everything is organized to guide the user smoothly through the experience while keeping them informed and engaged.
Posting a meal
We designed this feature with busy parents in mind, making it quick and easy to share meals.
➡️ Save Draft: Parents can start adding a meal and finish later. This helps them plan ahead without pressure.
➡️ Repost Meal: Instead of entering the same information again, users can simply select a previously shared meal and repost it with one tap.
This help save time and make the process smoother for parents who are juggling daily tasks.
Choosing a meal
To help parents find the best match for their child, the app offers smart guidance during meal selection.
➡️ Boosted Matching: Users can increase their chances of being matched with meals their child is likely to enjoy.
➡️ Lunchie Recommended Stamp: This label highlights dishes that align with the child’s past preferences and progress. It encourages parents to explore new options while still considering what their child likes.
This supports both comfort and curiosity, helping expand each child's taste in a thoughtful way.
Connections
The app includes a simple messaging feature to make meal exchanges more personal and organized.
➡️ When a user sends a Special Request ⭐, the receiving parent gets a notification 💖
➡️ Notifications appear as chat messages, making it easy to track all exchanges and requests
➡️ Parents can also view profiles and start conversations with others in the same class.
This creates a sense of community and makes coordination between families smoother.
Food Rating
At the end of the day, users receive a notification reminding them to rate the meal their child received.
They can ask their child about the experience and submit a quick rating through the app.
⚠️ The rating stays private. It won’t be shared with the other parent.
Instead, it’s used to track the child’s preferences and help improve future meal matches.
User Profile
The User Profile brings everything together in one place. It's also visible to other users in the same class.
➡️ Dishes: Shows a history of all meals the user has shared.
➡️ Favorites: Meals rated 4 or 5 stars are automatically saved here for easy reposting.
➡️ Children: If a parent has more than one child in the same school, they can easily switch between classes from the main menu. Each class has its own menu and history.
Parents can also access the Exchange History directly from the home screen to see what meals have been swapped before.
📈 As children continue to participate in exchanges, their food variety improves. This progress is tracked and can be viewed in their profile.
Child Progress
Parents receive a simple, visual report to track their child’s food journey over time.
➡️ The data visualization uses bubbles to show how often each cuisine is eaten. Larger bubbles mean higher frequency.
➡️ More bubbles indicate a more diverse diet.
➡️ New cuisines are highlighted in yellow, making it easy to spot recent additions.
➡️ The Statistics section is updated yearly, showing overall patterns and progress.
Based on this data, Lunchie recommends new cuisines that the child hasn’t tried yet or should eat more of, helping to gently expand their taste and cultural awareness.
Teacher Mode
Teachers use the app to manage and record all in-class meal exchanges.
➡️ Each class has its own group of students, exchange list, and history.
➡️ Teachers are responsible for marking completed exchanges in the app.
➡️ They can review all past exchanges they've facilitated by accessing the class records.
This mode helps keep the program organized and ensures that every meal exchange is properly tracked.
My Learnings ✨
This project, even though it was just a concept, really opened my eyes to the whole process of creating a digital product. My partner and I went above and beyond by conducting user research that exceeded the expectations of our class. It was during this process that I realized how much I enjoy engaging with people and understanding their thoughts, as it can have a significant impact on our product.
Speaking specifically about this project, I can confidently say that it greatly enhanced my skills in using Figma. I learned how to create and utilize components and styles, which has been a game-changer. I'm excited to apply this newfound knowledge and continue honing my skills in future projects. ⭐