The ultimate app to stay connected to other fellow pet lovers in your community and to share, announce, communicate, and recommend products and services for your furry friend. All in one app, everything you need for your pet you can find it here.
OVERVIEW
Project Summary
The Problem:
To create a social media community application for pet owners that could also be a source to find information, local services, shops, recommendations, reviews... without going through multiple websites/channels. In this design sprint, I was validating the idea of booking a dog walker through a recommendation in the app.
The Solution:
Pawsbook, allows members to:
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Create and share posts of their pet(s)
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Ask members for recommendations on pet shops and services
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Read reviews
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Book services
PROCESS
The Design Sprint
This process helped me to clearly define goals, validate assumptions, and decide on a product roadmap before starting development.
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Research and establish requirements: Pick a starting point that's consistent with my design goals.
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Understand: Map out the problem and pick an important area to focus on.
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Ideate: Sketch out competing solutions on paper.
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Decide: Make decisions and turn my ideas into a testable hypothesis.
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Prototype: Hack together a realistic prototype.
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Test: Get feedback from real, live users.
Framing the problem: How Might We?
I used the How Might We method to reframe my insights and thoughts into a broader context. These statements helped me think about the problem from many different angles. It has also helped me to think about the actual user need vs a cool idea. Then I picked 3 questions and began brainstorming solutions. Next, I reviewed all the ideas and trimmed them down to the best ones.
Target Audience:
Key Demographics & Psychographics
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Age range: 18-65+
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Gender: Male & Female
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Common job titles: Professionals, students, retires, seniors, anyone who owns a pet
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Values: animal friendships
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Likes: pets
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Wants to: meet/hang out with other pet owners
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Challenges: Lack of time and resources
$
Pet Industry Statistics:
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2018-$90.5 billion
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2019-$95.7 billion
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2020-estimated $99.0 billion will be spent on our pet
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67% of households or about 85 million families are pet owners
User Personas:
Introduced my persona and the target audience to whom I designed this app around.
Jack
Age: 32
Occupation: IT Specialist
Status: Single
Pet: Purusha, 1-year-old Bulldog
Location: Just moved to the suburbs of Chicago
The busy tech-savvy professional
“ Purusha, how can we find new friends and services for you?”
Motivations:
Jack has just moved to the area and lives with Purusha, his 1-year-old Bulldog. She is a very friendly and playful dog and gets a lot of attention from people. Jack wants to find other dog owners in the area so his dog can have playdates. Also, he’s looking for people who can walk her if he gets tied up at work.
Goals:
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Connect with other pet owners in the area
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Find services such as dog walking, grooming, dog care
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Find dog parks
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Buy food, dog toys…
Frustrations:
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So many options online
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Don’t have time to search online
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Don’t have time to read all the reviews
Empathy Map:
Does
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Check online to see if I can find services in his area
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Ran into some cute girls while walking Purusha
Feels
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Hard to move to a new area
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Don't know anybody
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Moving to a new area is frustrating.
Thinks
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Can I find reliable people/services for my dog?
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Can I make new friends?
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Do any young professionals live in this neighberhood?
Says
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Says hello to people in his neighborhood with dogs
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Ask them about nearby dog parks
Pain
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Takes so much time to search online
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Not many reviews online
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Don’t know anybody in the area
Gain
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Meeting new friends for Purusha and himself
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Quick and easy way to find recommendations
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Learning so much about the community of people with pets
Journey Map:
Created a detailed user journey to further visualize the project concept and get ready for wireframing.
Sketch It Out:
Notes, ideas, crazy 8, and solution sketch.
Flowchart:
Next, it was time to begin thinking about the important features in the app. I created a user flow to better visualize the user's experience through the app. The structure of the app that was most logical and simplified was defined so that the users would better adjust to the functionality of the product.
Wireframes & Project Planning:
In this stage, rough sketches were developed into a more defined digital version in grayscale. They provided better clarity on the components and content of the app.
Storyboard:
Persona:
Jack, IT professional, dog owner
User Story/Scenario:
Jack just moved to the area, needs a dog walker service for his dog. He chats with other pet owners, schedules a dog walker appointment based on recommendations.
Jack take a selfie with his dog
Jack take a selfie with his dog
Jack post the picture on the live feed of the app
Jack post the picture on the live feed of the app
Jack chats with other pet owners
Jack chats with other pet owners
Jack goes to the Services/Dog Walker section of the app and searches for the shop’s name
Find the shop, enters info about his dog
Schedules an appointment to meet the walker
Paper Prototype:
Here I sketched out several key pages and states of the site. Then I conducted a usability test with paper prototypes. This ideation tool helped me ensure that I am building thoughtful products that meet user needs.
PROTOTYPE
& User Testing
Prototype:
I created a series of high-fidelity prototype that was based on the original low-fi wireframes.
User Interviews:
To further research, I conducted a few in-person interviews.
Interview Findings
What users liked:
Loved the idea of a social media platform for pets
Straight forward
Clear to go to Services
Would definitely be interested in using an app with such features
Convenient, don’t have to call or go through multiple channels to book an appointment
Can find resources for your pet in your community
What users want to see:
A list of pet-friendly coffee shops, restaurants, dog parks...
The overall rating
Change “More” to “Resources”?
Should “Explore” take the users to services?
List reviews from the most recent reviews
Show the distance to the service from the user’s location
NEXT STEPS
Iteration
Development Plan:
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Simplify the bottom navigation bar to display four destinations instead of five. We removed More from the bottom navigation bar and made Explore the destination for 4 main categories: Services, Shop, Places, and More.
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Add Places section for users to find pet-friendly places to hang out like coffee shops, restaurants, bars, dog parks…
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Include overall rating of services
Updated Flowchart:
I updated the user flow to guide users in the right direction to quickly achieve their goals and form a smooth user experience.
Updated Prototype:
I iterated my designs to reflect the needs and behaviors of the users. Key design changes are illustrated below.
Before
After
Simplified the bottom navigation bar to display four destinations instead of five.
Before
After
Removed More from the bottom navigation bar and made Explore the destination for 4 main categories: Services, Shop, Places, and More.
CONCLUSION
Lessons & Outcome
Lessons:
Nothing compares with the experience I gained by going through a design sprint to tackle my assumptions, brainstorm new ideas, bring one to life, and put it to the test.
At the end of the design sprint, I was able to iterate based on the feedback from the users and come up with the solution. Pawsbook is a great platform for pet owners to connect with other pet lovers in their community, find services and places that are recommended by them, and book/purchase without leaving the app. Pawsbook is all you need for your pet.
Next Step:
After the design sprint, the next step was the UI sprint. To develop the visual design and test the interface with the users. Here is the link to see the UI development of the app and usability test findings.