RFP: USING HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN TO INFORM THE DESIGN OF A GAMING APP TO PROMOTE HEALTHY SNACKS FOR ADOLESCENTS IN INDONESIA
I. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND SCOPE OF WORK
1. ABOUT GAIN
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is a Swiss-based foundation launched at the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Working with both governments and businesses, we aim to transform food systems so that they deliver more nutritious food for all people.
At GAIN, we believe that everyone in the world should have access to nutritious and safe food. We work to understand and deliver specific solutions to the daily challenge of food insecurity faced by poor people. By understanding that there is no “one-size-fits-all” model, we develop alliances and build tailored programmes, using a variety of flexible models and approaches.
We build alliances between governments, local and global businesses, and civil society to deliver sustainable improvements at scale. We are part of a global network of partners working together to create sustainable solutions to malnutrition. Through alliances, we provide technical, financial and policy support to key participants in the food system. We use specific learning, evidence of impact, and results of projects and programmes to shape and influence the actions of others.
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, GAIN has representative offices in Denmark, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, we have country offices in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Tanzania. Programmes and projects are carried out in a variety of other countries, particularly in Africa and Asia.
2. BACKGROUND
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is issuing this Request for Proposal (RFP) and will be the administrative lead organisation for this RFP.
Low-quality diet, particularly processed food consumption, are the leading risk factor for poor health. Access to low-quality diets is becoming prevalent nowadays. Indonesian adolescents’ snack multiple times a day (Blum et al, 2019) and regularly purchase pre-packaged snacks sold by street vendors, school canteens and kiosks.
GAIN’s ‘Food Investigator’ is a project that aims to involve adolescents through an interactive gamified app to map out the source of nutritious foods and snacks in their local food environment. This project design is premised on the theory that if adolescents are able to identify healthier vs. less healthy food options, are more aware of the consequences of unhealthy snacking, and have access to healthier options within their direct environment, then they will be motivated to shift their snacking behaviours towards healthier options. To achieve this, we will implement activities along 3 pillars over 3 years.
Pillar 1: Youth engagement to drive demand for healthier snacks
This pillar includes the co-creation with adolescent and implementation of a multimedia campaign to improve snacking and the co-development of the 'Food Investigator' gaming app. This app aims to encourage adolescents to seek out healthier options, while at the same time signaling demand for healthier food to the vendors in the hope of triggering a market response. It will encourage participants to input nutrition data from labels of packaged foods and snacks and instantly interpreting this information using a visual front-of-package labels (visual-FOPL) that were designed for the game. It is a gaming app for promoting better snack choice aiming for shifting behavior towards healthier snacking behaviour.
The main outcomes of this pillar include:
• Increased awareness and knowledge among adolescents about the nutritional content of snacks and their health implications;
• Increased awareness among adolescents of availability of healthier snacking options and
• Increased awareness among local institutions about lack of healthy snacking options in schools and surrounding areas.
Pillar 2: Retail response
The project outcome will be to increase the motivation of retailers to improve snack food offerings. The longer- term outcome is that producers will supply more appropriately labelled, healthier snacks targeting adolescents.
Pillar 3: Policies and enabling environment
GAIN and partners will work towards the outcome of increasing awareness among authorities about the lack of compliance of pre-packaged snack manufacturers on food labelling and in the long term, influence the regulatory environment and expand labelling legislation, which would lead to more producers complying to appropriate labelling of pre-packaged snacks.
The purpose of this RFP is to engage services of a Service Provider to design and implement a Human-Centered Design (HCD) process to inform the development of the ‘Food Investigator’ project, in particular, the gaming app.
3. SCOPE OF WORK AND DELIVERABLES
The assignment consists of planning and conducting the 5-stage HCD process to inform the development of the ‘Food Investigator’ gaming app. It includes performing at least the following tasks:
1. Plan and conduct an inception phase and prepare a brief inception report.
2. In collaboration with partners, develop a problem statement, define the learning goals, conduct brief literature review to address the goals and plan formative research to close any remaining knowledge gaps.
3. Develop a study protocol and request ethical approval.
4. Conduct data collection, analyze the data and prepare brief report with research findings.
5. In collaboration with partners, develop creative prompts (i.e., ‘how might we’ statements) to help inspire specific concepts.
6. Conceptualize solutions, develop and prototype solutions with partners.
7. Refine identified solution to be scaled.
8. Work closely with GAIN, app developer, creative agency and adolescents in every stage, ensuring a collaborative and inclusive process.
9. Develop final report with detailed description of each stage (methods, results, interpretation of results).
10. Present results to GAIN and partners.
3.1. OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this assignment is to design and implement a Human-Centered Design (HCD) process to inform the development of the ‘Food Investigator’ project, in particular, the gaming app. Following the 5-phased process of HCD, the consultant will work with the project team (including GAIN, app developer, creative agency and other partners) to provide evidence-supported answers to the following questions[1]:
i. What is the objective of the gaming app? In collaboration with partners, the team will revisit and refine the intended outcome as a measurable goal, define the priority user group, and focus on the main barriers that we will seek to address through further research.
ii. What are our learning goals? This phase involves reviewing the existing evidence, recognizing any assumptions, and determining the knowledge gaps that should be explored in the next phase.
iii. What are the main barriers to be addressed? This phase comprises formative research activities, such as observations and interviews, to identify main barriers and translate research findings into creative prompts for developing solutions.
iv. How could we respond to these barriers? In collaboration with partners, the team will design quick examples and prototype design with users.
v. How could we improve our solutions? This phase involves testing and refining prototypes. It may also include stepping back into the previous phase to conceptualize new ideas and design new prototypes to be tested.
3.2. DELIVERABLES
Deliverables | Date Deliverable Due |
Brief inception report | 3 September 2021 |
Problem statement and learning goals | 10 September 2021 |
Study protocol and proof of submission to ethical review board | 17 September 2021 |
Transcripts (for qualitative methods) or database (for quantitative methods) from formative research activities | 29 October 2021 |
Brief formative research report | 5 November 2021 |
Brief report with creative prompts | 12 November 2021 |
Brief report detailing the ideation and prototyping of solutions | 12 November 2021 |
Draft detailed final report with finding and recommendation | 22 November 2021 |
Detailed final report with findings and recommendation; power point presentation | 30 November 2021 |
II. INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESPONDING
This section addresses the process for responding to this solicitation. Applicants are encouraged to review this prior to completing their responses.
1. CONTACT
Please direct all inquiries and other communications to gainindonesia@gainhealth.org, subject line ‘HCD Indonesia - query’. Responses will not be confidential except in cases where proprietary information is involved.
2. BUDGET
Applicants are required to provide GAIN with a detailed fee percentage proposal. The final budget amount will have to be approved by the organisation prior to starting the project.
3. SUBMISSION
Interested applicants should prepare a brief proposal (maximum 5 pages) that includes:
a. Description and strategy on how to address the expected deliverables and budget. The proposal needs to give rational explanation behind the strategy.
b. CV of the team who will be assigned for the task-highlighting recent relevant experience and references; and
c. A completed ‘Offer of Services’ form (see end of RFP for template).
4. DEADLINE
Completed proposals should be submitted to GAIN Indonesia, by email at gainindonesia@gainhealth.org by 24.00 pm WIB on 20 August 2021.
5. UNACCEPTABLE
The following proposals will automatically not be considered or accepted:
- Proposals that are received after the RFP deadline at the specified receiving office.
- Proposals received by fax.
- Incomplete proposals.
- Proposals that are not signed.
6. REVISIONS
Proposals may be revised by electronic mail and received before the deadline.
7. ACCEPTANCE
GAIN will not necessarily accept the lowest cost or any of the Proposals submitted. Accordingly, eligibility requirements, evaluation criteria and mandatory requirements shall govern.
8. COMPLETION
- Proposals must be submitted on official letterhead of the lead organisation or firm and must be signed by a principal or authorising signatory of the lead firm or organisation.
- In case of errors in calculating overall costs, the unit costs will govern.
- It is the applicant's responsibility to understand the requirements and instructions specified by GAIN. In the event that clarification is necessary, applicants are advised to contact the responsible person at GAIN under section II. point 1., prior to making their submission.
- While GAIN has used considerable efforts to ensure an accurate representation in this Request for Proposal (RFP), the information contained in this RFP is supplied solely as a guideline. The information is not warranted to be accurate by GAIN. Nothing in this RFP is intended to relieve applicants from forming their own opinions and conclusions with respect to the matters addressed in this RFP.
- By responding to this RFP, the applicant confirms its understanding that failing to comply with any of the RFP conditions may result in the disqualification of their submission.
A complete RFP can be downloaded here.