Project
Eating healthily and sustainably as an everyday act. The design of an app born out of research, one that accompanies without imposing.
UniPlate: the app for eating well at university
- Client
- University of Parma
- Area
- Identity, Development
- Year
- 2025
- Main link
- Download the app
Changing eating habits is hard, especially at twenty, between lectures, the canteen and time that runs short. The information about what is healthy and sustainable already exists, but it stays far from daily life. Stating it is not enough. What is needed are tools that enter daily life without feeling like a duty.
Uniplate exists for this. It is a mobile app designed to guide students and staff at the University of Parma towards healthier and more sustainable eating. It was developed by the University within the OnFoods national recovery plan project, by the Human Nutrition Unit together with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and validated through a clinical study.
Dinamo handled the experience design, translating nutritional objectives and behavioural guidance into an interface that is immediate and never prescriptive.
Turning nutritional guidelines into an app that accompanies, not into a list of prohibitions.
Co-design with the research team
We worked in co-design with the scientific groups at the University of Parma, coordinated by Professor Francesca Scazzina. The aim was to hold together the rigour of the Italian Guidelines for Healthy Eating and the lightness of an everyday act.
The app accompanies the person day by day. On the Home screen you record the week's objectives, from portions of fruit and vegetables to two litres of water, alongside a short piece on nutrition and the environmental impact of food. The Menu section guides meal planning while respecting the rotation of protein sources, with the freedom to change them at will and a gentle notice when the recommended frequencies do not add up. From there comes the shopping list.
Recipes are also assessed for their water and carbon footprint. Badges reward progress without turning it into an obligation. The visual language aims at immediacy and inclusiveness, consistent with the scientific purposes of the project.
Visual identity and communication in the spaces
The work did not stop at the screen. We looked after Uniplate's visual identity and the communication system that carries it into campus life. In the University's canteens and food outlets, educational posters on health and food sustainability take shape, along with infographics that guide choices at the table and encourage people to cut waste, beside the poster for downloading the app and the QR code for collecting feedback.
The same identity runs through the project's Instagram page and the Make Your MEME contest, designed to involve students and staff in a light register. The aim is to turn the lunch break into an educational moment, where a good habit arrives through curiosity rather than instruction.
