Monash FODMAP Diet 12+

The best App for IBS

I was diagnosed with IBS a few years ago … I had no energy, broken sleep from trips to the toilet etc and generally felt awful. A therapist suggested Monash App and it’s the best thing ever. It tells you exactly how much of any one food stuff you can eat without a bad reaction. It tells you whether you can eat 10g or 200g .. sometimes 10g is just enough. It also tests many different commercial products and tells you which country they are available to buy. Not all gluten free products are low Fodmap.. they might have Amaranth or pea powder etc which are high Fodmap .. so by testing products like Schar, it’s just one less problem to think about when shopping. It also provides recipes, food diary , courses etc. An absolute godsend ! I wouldn’t be without it.

Developer Response ,

Hi there - thanks for your review. It's great to hear you find the app so useful!

Why did you make updates that were worse? Do you not do user research with people who have ibs?

Recently you made an update to the times which actually make it hard to record the data where I have to tap twice to edit the times? This was somehow easier to do before so I’m not sure why this change was introduced.

Could you do voice dictation so that it types as you speak for the diary section? I find typing in food measurement the most cumbersome part. I do appreciate the clean interface and the simple logic that’s applied. Although it could do a bit more to help users spot or identify patterns in their behaviours so that they can see how it affects their symptoms such as sleeping patterns, quantity of liquids they’re consuming, how often they might feel symptoms throughout the week or if these symptoms only occur in the mornings etc. If the app could provide the analytics then it would be so useful to identify triggers in behaviours. For design, my only issue is that the British stool chart could perhaps make the stools look less realistic as doing the app in public or shared spaces can be a bit off putting, I personally don’t want to get my phone to do a diary entry and then for someone to see an image of my stool if that makes sense so more discretion would be good for privacy. Happy to comment on any other features if you want to get in touch as I study UX but also suffer from GI issues. More user research and testing would really help but I know that it’s not easy

Informative guide

This is my first review of any App. The App enables me to understand the scientific background well. However, I find that it would be more useful if the app could update my input e.g. shopping list from one device to another. I spent a long time reviewing the recipes , then making a shopping list on my iPad, thinking it would update automatically on my iPhone and only then realising that was not the case. Other Apps have this facility. Frustratingly I also found that when I scroll down the recipes to find “other” to input my own recipe it wasn’t there...I couldn’t find it. I need to be able to do this so that I can accurately chart my food intake and be able to see the chart results at the end of each week and report to my dietician. it would be very useful in any future development of the App, to have a barcode reader for items bought so I could check the food product with the low FODMAP diet. This is available on another similar App. It is fair to say the traffic light system is easy to follow on the various food categories. Finally from my personal experience ...It would have been so useful if there had been some contact information to assist me in the use of the App.