Paw Play
Roles & Responsibilities
User Research: Competitive Analysis, User Flow, Survey
UX Design: Sketching, Wireframe, Prototyping, Interaction Design
Project Context
Solo Project
Timeline: 2 Weeks
Tools Used
Figma
Miro
What is Paw Play?
Helping dog owners find the perfect
play date for their pup
As pet owners, we want our dogs to live the best lives they can for the short amount of time they're with us. Prioritizing our dog's social health is an important part of their happiness.
Paw Play is a way for dog owners to match with other owners with the intention to set up a doggy play date.
I wanted to find a way to help these dog owners, who may have busy lives, to find the time to prioritize their dog's well-being.
Challenge
Challenge
When prioritizing our dog's social well-being, we want our dogs to connect with other dogs that are friendly and get along with our dogs. We also don't want the owner to raise any red flags.
How might we design an experience that would allow owners to find the perfect play date for their pup with desirable characteristics from the dog as well as the owner?
Sneak peek...
The Origin Story of Paw Play
My dogs are an important part of my life and I know how much dog owners just want the best for their pups. It can be difficult to prioritize their social well-being and Paw Play was created to assist with that.
I've heard countless stories about how friends and acquaintances had to rehome their pups because they had too much energy. Being able to take dogs on walks or take them on play dates is a way to expend this energy.
That's why I designed Paw Play to help find a way for dogs and their owner to socialize and find long term buddies!
I created a survey to ask essential questions to our users and here are some of the questions I asked them:
Research Analysis: Understanding what are users' needs and challenges are
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How much do you value your dog's social well-being?
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Have you ever had trouble prioritizing your dog's social wellbeing (through play dates, interacting with other dogs on walks, etc.?)
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How interested are you in an app where you can match your dog with other dogs and potentially schedule a play date for them?
Getting to know our users by compiling the research results
100% of our users prioritize their dogs' social well-being
83.3% of our users had trouble prioritizing their dog's social well-being
66.7% of our users would be interested in an app like Paw Play
Features our users wanted to see
Evaluation of the existing solutions
Through researching these competitors, I gathered information on what to do and what not to do for my app. I found features that enhanced the user experience and wanted to implement that into Paw Play. The features included in these competing apps will be added into my app.
How will I make my app differently?
With the insights of the competitive analysis, I would make sure that the app...
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Makes scheduling the doggy play dates as efficient as possible
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Has a functional swipe left or right feature
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Doesn't overload the pages with too many buttons
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Has neat, clean UI
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Is user friendly and easy to use
Empathy Map
Here is an empathy map that showcases what our users would say, think, do, and feel. It allows me to step inside of our user's world, understand their pain points and needs, and thus create an app that is tailored for them.
User Flow
This user flow showcases the steps a user might take from the welcome page, to logging in or creating an account, to searching and swiping the dogs' profiles, and more! It helped me to create and understand the general flow and how I should outline the app.
Moving forward to the design phase...
Research Analysis: Determining which features to add
Based on our research we will be adding several features to Paw Play. We will allow the owners to add characteristics of their dogs in the profile card. This would allow users to better match their dogs to the characteristics of other dogs. We will also add an about page and reviews for the dog and owner so users can rate their play date with them. We want the owners to be able to message each other and organize a time to meet so we will be adding a messages page. Users can also add what their dog likes and pick a question to answer about their dog to add as a conversation starter.
Design: Starting the process
Design Ideation
Low-Fidelity Wireframe
Users wanted to see characteristics of the dog so I outlined the basic wireframe of the app and included characteristics, likes, and dislikes. The users want to make sure they know the owner so I added a section where users can see a picture of the owner.
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Mid-Fidelity Wireframe
Users were interested in knowing more about the dog owner so I added an "About the Dog Owner" section to let the users add a description about themselves. The users wanted to be able to differentiate a good person to a person with bad intentions so a "Hide/Report" button was added.
Hi-Fi Prototype & Flow
Users wanted a personality profile for the dogs so I added an "About", "Characteristics", "Likes", and "Questions" section to let the user know more about the dog. Users wanted to be able to see reviews of the owner and dog so I added stars and "See reviews" button on the profile cards.
Visual Architecture
PROTOTYPE
Final Features of Paw Play
Profile Card
Check out your potential doggy play date! Includes an about your dog, about the dog owner, characteristics, behavior reviews from other matches, a question prompt, and likes.
Swipe Right
Swipe right on a dog's profile card to potentially make a new furriend!
Swipe Left
Similar to swipe right, when you swipe left the page turns red and you move on to your next play date.
Use filters to narrow down your search
Choose from the select filters to get closer to finding a furry friend.
Chat with your furriends
Talk to your play date matches and sort your messages by clicking "Recent", "Unread", "Nearby", or the search button. In the question mark, it includes dogs that swiped right on you but you have yet to see their profile.
Interactive Prototype
Reflection
Key Takeaways
Through completing this project, I learned how to better structure my case studies. I received feedback from other UX designers and they suggested that my case studies be like telling a story and portraying my design decisions. I made sure to also prioritize the users' opinions and really thoroughly investigate the research aspect in order to make better design decisions.
Challenges
It was difficult to navigate this project alone. I didn't receive feedback from other UX/UI designers and researchers so I had to go off by my own knowledge. I'm also still learning how to structure my survey questions in a way that would get me the most out of my research.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed making this project because it featured my baby pets! I'm a huge animal lover and I wanted to showcase that through my project in addition to my UX design skills. I would delve into usability testing more because that way it would allow me to understand which areas of my app I need to improve on in terms of UX. I am looking forward to working with a team of talented designers and researchers and look forward to the opportunities I have ahead of me.