FUR BABY
SUMMARY
FUR BABY is an ios mobile app design to help reduce dogs' separation and social anxiety by promoting mental and physical well-being for both the parent and their furbabies. Also, this is a User Experience Design case study to explore the in-depth UX design process.
ROLE: UX/UI Designer
TOOLS
User Research, Survey
Competitive Analysis
User Persona, Storyboard
Ideation, Definition
Site Map, User flow
Wireframe, High Fidelity Prototype
User Testing
Adobe XD
Photoshop
illustrator
InVision
Trello
Slack
Flow Map
TEAM
Our team is comprised of 3 members, each providing unique advantages. I worked with UX/UI Designers Asante and Khadijah to design an intuitive social media mobile app for fur babies and their parents.
PROCESS
Timeline: 3 Weeks
PROBLEM
OUR RESEARCH
We targeted audiences at the pet saturated places such as parks with heavy traffic, pet stores, and local dog parks. We initially posted a survey with about 12 questions, conducted about 10 street interviews and 4 user interviews. Everyone that participated was a pet owner. Our initial user research revealed that primary users wouldn’t be as interested in an at-home video monitoring system for their dog, but more so reliable entertainment and an increase in social interaction with their dogs. With these new findings, we pivoted our user research to focus more on entertainment and interaction within the dog community. With the data from the tailored survey and street interview questions, we transformed our objective to focus on the reduction of separation and social anxiety through the social engagement of the dog community.
SURVEY
We found that pet owners weren’t interested in an at-home video monitoring system while they were away at work. Especially, they’re not worried when their pets were well trained or grown older. However, they were more concerned with the entertainment of their pet and their social anxiety when out in public.
SOLUTION
Being that the users were more interested in the entertainment of their pet and their social anxiety when out in public, we focused on features such as visibility, increased interactions socially, and gained experiences all within the dog community.
Our initial concept of this case study is to create an interactive app that allows pet owners to monitor their fur babies with cameras installed in their homes wherever they see fit. The survey question below from our first user research approach showed that over 50% of the participants are more concerned with dogs' happiness and entertainment when they staying home alone.
Therefore, we pivoted our concept to create an interactive app that allows dog owners to socially engage with the overall dog community. Then we did our second survey with questions focus more on the socialization and the quality of dogs' life
USERS
After creating our Empathy Map, we were able to finalize our User Persona. We have Kate Lexington, a registered nurse who just moved to Seattle, WA. She wants to have more opportunities to entertain and socialize with her dog and other pet owners.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
For competitor analysis, we searched for both social media apps and apps designed to encourage dog socialization. We focus mainly on social networking and health for dogs and their owners. Paw Parks is one of our biggest competitors. This app has a similar concept, which is to help dog owners to find available dog parks nearby. This was helpful because we were able to gain a sense of what features were important for this inspirational mobile app, and what features were unique to add on the app.
IDEATION
When the research was complete, we began to Ideation using all of the knowledge we had gained from our research and analysis. We used the Affinity Diagram and the I Like, I Wish, What If method. We then organized our ideas into a Prioritization Matrix in order to figure out which ideas and features were most important to the users.
With the result of our Prioritization Matrix, we were able to identify three of our main features of the app:
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DISCOVER - intuitive mapping experience with the local dog community
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NEWSFEED - socially engage and learn daily tips on how to reduce separation anxiety of pets
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REWARDS - redeem points for check-in, sharing tips and adding reviews
VALUE PROPOSITION
After we complete the ideation and identified three main features of the app, we soon finalized our value proposition:
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With an intuitive map, earned rewards, social engagement, and dog-friendly suggestions, Fur Baby will reduce your dog’s separation and social anxiety by promoting mental and physical well-being for both you and your furbaby!
STORYBOARD & USER JOURNEY
USER FLOW
This user flow tracks the steps for both the first time user and the returning user to use all the features on the app.
SKETCHES & DIGITAL WIREFRAME
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Click the link below to view our final prototype:
https://xd.adobe.com/view/6ce70d15-0044-48ff-5899-36813d9cd24d-1ad6/
USER TESTING & ANALYSIS
FINAL THOUGHTS
User Experience Design Process is not linear! We learned to always go back to our research and keep the focus on the main problem and solution through our entire case study. User Testing was also the key to the development of this application. We saw that our prototypes failed quickly after the first A/B testing. We were able o use the analysis and apply it to our final prototypes. Some of the future opportunities would be to:
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able to add outline colors to the profile image, and the color will change based on the dog's current mood
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add steps during onboarding to setup personal doggy profile with their personality and lifestyle