Role
UX Designer
Applications
Sketch
InVision
Adobe Creative Cloud
Duration
Five Days
This project was conducted over a five day period using a modified version of the Google Ventures Sprint process. I was provided with existing user research to use a starting point for the project.
Day 1 (Understanding the Problem)
City Pups is a start up who’s goal is to help individuals living in cities find the perfect dog companion through adoption. People who live in cities have a hard time finding dogs that fit their unique needs. They have to balance living space size, free time for play/exercise, among other things like energy level, size, weight, and temperament. Existing services do not always provide all of these information points for each dog which can leave users unsure about adoption. Users want to feel 100 percent confident that the dog is the right companion for them.
Most City Pups users access the website through a desktop browser so all screens are designed with desktop use in mind.
My goal will be to decrease rebound rates for users visiting the site, which in turn will hopefully lead to more adoptions.
To start off I outlined a user’s process map to show each step of how a user would currently adopt a dog from the site.
User Process Map
Location search field
Website populates list
Filter by age/breed/size
Repopulate results
Click on dog
Reads description and views pics/photos
Decides to adopt dog by visiting adoption link or goes back to results
Day 2 (Ideation)
With a better understanding of the problem, I transitioned to looking at other existing sites revolving around adoption to see how they functioned. I also researched other similar online services that may not be focused on pet adoption to get a broader view (such as car buying or dating websites).
Crazy Eights
This is a creative thinking activity where I chose the most important screen in the process, and sketched eight different variations of the screen in eight minutes. This rapid ideation made me think quickly about how information could be displayed. The screen I picked was the screen where search results will be populated and a user makes a decision about which pet to view more in-depth.
Through this process I came across the idea of a quiz that could match a user’s lifestyle needs to the dogs available for adoption. This would invest the user in the process of adoption while also making them more confident that dogs they are viewing will be the right fit for them. Putting this in my back pocket for later, I took a step back from focusing on a singular screen and quickly sketched the screens directly before and after the results page.
Day 3 (Story Boarding)
A story board was created to demonstrate every screen the user would interact with in their pet adoption process. At this point I chose to create a section called ‘pet quiz’ that asked users about their life and generates a list of matching dogs based on their answers. For example if you answer that you live in a small apartment and will only be able to play with your dog inside or take them on short walks then you would be shown dogs with behavioral characteristics that would fit that scenario. Users would be able to filter their list further if desired or favorite dogs in the list to save for later if having trouble making a decision.
Day 4 (Prototyping)
Using the storyboard as a guide I quickly turned to Sketch to create the initial prototype. While working on this phase a few revisions to the screens were made such as removing a featured dog section and search bar to streamline the user flow and put the main focus on the matching quiz. Minor tweaks to the questions and results page were also made.
Day 5 (User Interviews)
To test my prototype I conducted five user interviews. All participants live in a metropolitan area to match City Pups target users. They have adopted a pet in the past or are interested in adopting in the future. Interviewees were between the ages 25-40.
Each interview was conducted remotely by providing an InVision prototype link to the participants and using Skype to screen share their navigation through the prototype. My main goal from this process is to determine if the questions asked during the quiz are addressing the concerns or interests each user has about their potential pet.
After general introductions each interviewee was asked about their initial thoughts of the website, and what its intended use is. After this they were provided with the task of finding a dog they would be interested in adopting. Participants were encouraged to think out loud throughout the task to document their decision making process. Once the task was completed general follow up questions about their experience were asked.
“It would be nice to know if it worked for other people.” - Russell
“I want as big of a dog that I can get, and it will still be comfortable.” - Kalie
“Do any of these dogs have different noise levels? I could compare that trait with the other dogs somehow.” - Kalie
“I’d like to know how much energy a dog has. I don’t want it running around my apartment all the time.” - Joaquin
“Are these dogs from breeders or shelters?” - Daniel
In addition to the notable quotes above, two users looked for some type of ‘back to results’ button after visiting a dog’s profile page instead of using their browser's back button. This will need to be added in the final design.
All participants completed the task, and most were satisfied with the website’s minimal design. However based on each user conversation it was apparent the questions needed to be reworked. Some questions asked users to tell us about their ideal dog instead of asking about their life. I also wanted to be more clear about how the questions related back to their potential dog because there was general confusion in this area.
Final Design
In just five days I was able to create a solution to the City Pups design brief, test, and iterate. What are the next steps? If the project continues I would like to test the revised home screen, quiz, and dog profile page to see how users react to the changes. There were also a few ‘nice to have’ revisions that did not make it into the final design due to time constraints, but would be great additions to make in a second sprint. Please check out the prototype link and final screens below!
