Nutribuddy, art and mobile devices in health literacy was a project funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which aimed to improve youngsters' nutrition literacy by engaging them in an educational game designed for mobile platforms (Android and iOS-based smartphones and tablets).New mobile devices applications could provide an excellent opportunity to broaden the accessibility of health information by promoting literacy, especially among children and young people, who adhere much more easily to new technologies. The use of digital media technologies has been considered relevant to promote health-related behaviours through motivational reinforcement, personalized teaching approaches, and social networking.

As mobile platforms and networks have become more powerful, more dynamic and more available to all, the mobility of ICT has changed the scenario of the two separate spheres of learning: in schools or everywhere. Nowadays, learners can have ICT constantly through platforms such as mobile phones, tablets and laptop computers, and thus there has been a rise in the level of interest in investigating the subject. It was also a vital element of the project to evaluate the youngster’s interaction with the game and its potential to dietary change contributing to obesity prevention. The underlying assumption is that this kind of application can facilitate people to change individual behaviours by appealing to intrinsically motivating strategies.

The game combined four levels with different complexity, including a running game, a memory game, and a quiz. The fourth level is the restaurant. The challenge is to keep the game's character healthy by feeding him outside the home context, with several 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' items, with adequate or oversized portions.

According to an approach to real life, a final level that simulates the eating experience in a restaurant was developed. It was intended to simulate what frequently happens in real life, when teenagers have to eat out of home, with free access to several healthy and unhealthy processed foods.

The game displays three indicators bars (energy, health and wellbeing) that switch according to player choices. This feedback provided immediate visual information of these three features related to all the possible food options. As a reinforcement, the game launches alerts to reward the intended behaviours or warn about unhealthy choices.
The design of the system flow aimed to understand and anticipate possible cognitive patterns of our users with the system.