Swap is a pet boarding platform. It connects pet parents and finds the Low-cost and efficient way to help each other to board pets.
OBJECTIVES
Individual project
MY ROLE
User Research
User Interviews
Journey Mapping
Sketching
Wireframing
Screen Flows
Visual Design
Interaction Design
TOOLS
Adobe XD
Sketch
Principle
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Pen and Paper
LET'S FIND A NEW WAY TO BOARD YOUR PETS
The Problems
Now, more and more people choose pets as their companions. Along with this, the demand for pet foster care services has increased. There are many options for pet boarding, whether it is a traditional pet hotel or an Internet company. Despite the abundant choices, the uneven service levels and high prices make it difficult for pet parents to choose.
The Challenges
It‘s really hard to board our pets in a safe, cheap, and convenient way.
There are two cases here.
CASE 1: If you are looking for a company to boarding pets.
Expensive Price
The Pet boarding fee is expensive. (Common pricing for overnight boarding in a kennel is $40-$60 per night in San Francisco.)
Changeable Time
Many places require an appointment in advance. But personal plans change frequently. If you choose a pet, you can only give up traveling.
No Uniform Standard
There is no uniform pet boarding standard in the industry. Because users have different needs, the service is difficult to get everyone's satisfaction. And the price sometimes does not equal the quality of service.
CASE 2: If you find family or friends to help.
Not a long-term option
Your choices will become very few unless you have a lot of friends and also they aways can help you.
Conflict
Getting help from friends and family is not a deal, so it is likely to cause conflict. (How much to pay? Will this disturb them? If I want to check the status of pets regularly, Is it rude?）
Non-professional
Our family and friends may not have pets. So they may not know how to take care of pets.
Key Drivers
With the increasing homogeneity of the pet service product market, building a platform ecosystem is critical to the success of applications. I based my designs to deliver upon the following key areas.
Community
Establish a pet community and encourage the owners to help each other to form a new ecological environment. Look for low prices in the community model.
Communication
Create communication opportunities between the pet owners to find solutions to problems. Simultaneously. By enhancing the user's information communication efficiency, reduce the burden of mobile phone software on users.
Personalization
It is difficult to establish uniform standards for foster care services. Through personalized customization, users can freely choose prices and services.
The Process
Background Research
Market Research
The average cost charged by dog boarding kennels is $30 to $50 per nightwith most pet owners spending $40. Weekly boarding rates start at $150while monthly prices cost $500 on average. In 2017, $69.51 billion was spent on pets boarding in the U.S. Pet Services. Overall, finding the right dog boarding option for your dog will depend mainly on what’s available in your area and your personal preferences.
Competitive Analysis
To kick-off and to have a better understanding of our scope, in the beginning, I‘m unsure if there is any existing competitive product that could provide us enough information. So I decided to take a look at the most popular dog setter and boarding apps on the market.
User Research
Professional field research
Most parents solve their needs by looking for a boarding service. There are several ways can do: Dog Kennel, Hospital & Vet Boarding, In-Home Boarding, Dog Sitting. But each way will bring more or less concerns to the pet owner.
Contagious Diseases
Boarding your dog involves having it spend the entire time with other dogs whose health history you’re unaware of. With all the highly infectious diseases floating around, you’re justified to worry. One of the most contagious dog diseases is kennel cough. Kennel cough spreads through the aerosols released by a dog when it coughs. Contaminated items such as food bowls and direct contact are other ways that a dog can get infected.
Dog Traumatized After Boarding
Boarding facilities differ a lot in schedules and dog handling. Taking your dog to a boarding kennel might result in unforeseen behavioral changes depending on how they interact with other dogs and how the kennel staff treats it. Mostly, the stress is a result of the dog being kenneled with other strange dogs and the noise from all the dogs’ barking.
Kennel Syndrome
Kennel syndrome, also known as “kennelosis,” is the behavior that a dog assumes when it’s in survival mode. It comes about when a dog spends most hours in the kennel. Yes, prolonged kenneling can drive your dog crazy. Kennel syndrome manifests in either extreme aggression or extreme submission. If your pooch is in a boarding facility that kennels them for long, then it stands a chance of developing kennel syndrome.
Is it really a good idea to keep your dog with friends?
Due to some of the above concerns, many dog owners choose to leave the dog for the care of friends. This is the best way for an emergency, but it seems to be not a thoughtful choice for recurring needs. How much to pay? Will this disturb your friends? If I want to check the status of pets regularly, Is it very rude?
User Interview
I interviewed randomly at a dog park near home. I interviewed a total of 20 groups of people. And here I selected the most representative 3 people as the display.
Jeffery
30, Soccer coach
care for their dog a lot (safety issue), He pays more attention to the health of dogs, such as food, make raw food for their dog.
Balt
1 & half, Tame dog
Friendly to strangers, Like jogging with his owner.
Jessica
27, Teacher
Look fit, jogging with their dog often, care about food quality, work from home, Instagram user, follow dog bloggers on ins. She rarely needs pet boarding. If there is a travel plan, she will look for a better pet hospital to board the dog.
Peter
25, Graduate student
Routine daily schedule. Walk dog before and after class. Go to bible study one day a week. Have a tight budget on raising dogs. He often chooses to board his dog at a friend's house.
Prezi
4 & half, Naughty dog
Eat every thing on the ground.
Lora
30, Store manager
Talkative, love to meeting people and make friends, giving treats to other dogs. She has experience helping others keep pets, and she loves animals.
Buck
2 & half, Strong dog
Sometimes Stomach, Destroy things at the home, Like to jump into people.
Semantic Profile
After that, I used the online questionnaire to interview dog parents, and received 52 feedbacks and made this semantic profile. Finally, I chose the Group C as my target users.
Semantic profiles measure people's attitudes about products, services, experiences, concepts, and similar entities. They are used to compare how different pet parents think and feel about entities.
Persona
Persona info: age/ gender/ status/ location/ story/ motivations/ pain point.
How might we?
Problems
Due to cost constraints, the pet's status cannot be communicated in a foster care center on time.
If you let your friends take care of your pets for a while, It is not convenient to confirm your pets' status usually.
Due to the labor cost, the rent and other hidden fees are high, so the pet's foster price is very high.
If you find a friend to help, it will be too embarrassing to talk about the price. It seems not good for friendship.
If your social circle is small, it is difficult to find a friend to help.
Insights
Pet parent wants to know the status of the pet immediately.
People feel that pet boarding price is not worth and hopes to find another way to lower the price.
People feel it's hard to find a suitable friend to help.
How might we?
If we design a transparent, efficient system for the owner?
If we can use shared resources to reduce costs?
If we can broaden our social circle, it is not limited to friends we know?
How might we design a transparent, cheap, efficient way to board their pets?
Design Process
Ideation
During the class, I did brainstorming with classmates, then I formatted 9 ideas into the IDEO innovation worksheet. Among them, I gradually narrowed down into one final idea — “Swap”, a pet boarding platform.
Finalize Idea
Asking for feedback is an efficient way to confirm and iterate concepts. By presenting our findings and ideas to people, we gradually simplified our strategy — connecting pet parents together to build a platform for them to help each other.
How does it work?
User Flow & Wireframes (Wireflow) 1.0
User Flow 1.0
Wireframe 1.0
Sketch 1.0
Wireflow 1.0
Through previous interviews and critique, I found that Swap users are complex. Because it is a collaborative app, users are divided into two camps: the user (the person who needs help) and the server (the person who provides the service). So at the beginning I tried to imitate the taxi software like uber or lift, separating the user and the server in two independent apps. But I found that my target users are not the same. The roles of my target users are often exchanged, and pet boarding service is not used as often as taxi applications. So I decided to combine both functions in one application and simplify the user's steps to make the software easier to use.
Usability Test & User Flow & Wireframes (Wireflow) 2.0
Usability Test
After designing User Flow, I kept running usability tests to ask about what they liked, what they didn’t like, the problems they found, and ideas that came out. Based on the feedback I got, I generated a clearer Wireframe.
Usability Test 1.0
Test Results
1. Consider offline and online experience
Pet boarding services are not just online work. After pet parents use the software to establish contact with others, they will also conduct offline communication and pet transportation. So the application needs to consider how to guide users' actions. And designers also need to consider the invisible needs of users, such as visiting pets' fostering environment (other people's homes); communicating facts with pet sitter; and how to deal with problems after encountering problems.
3. Use virtual currency instead of money
At the same time, I used virtual currency in the application to help users trade and save money. Users can help other users take care of their pets to get virtual currency. And when they need help, they can also spend virtual money in exchange for services.
User Flow 2.0
Based on the feedback I drew the User Flow 2.0.
Visual Identity
It took a while for me to think about what kind of feeling I wanted to give Swap as a brand. Finally, I decided to make it warmer and more friendly which is the same as the concept of Swap.
Inspiration 1
Inspiration 2
Inspiration 3
Size comparition/ Fonts/ Color system
Final Idea
Swap app
Swap is a platform to let pet parents help each other with boarding pets. Its users are low-income groups. Users can effectively reduce the cost of pet boarding by helping each other. The platform uses virtual currency to replace money. Users can help others to board pets to obtain virtual currency, and can also use virtual currency to purchase services. In the first version of the prototype, Swap does not yet have the feature of social media. Prototype mainly focuses on establishing a pet boarding platform and making this idea real and effective.
Key Features
With the increasing homogeneity of the pet service product market, building a platform ecosystem is critical to the success of applications. I based my designs to deliver upon the following key areas.
On boarding & Virtual Currency
We provide an overview of the application, so it's easier for you to understand the mental model of SWAP. We use virtual currency(CROWN) instead of money. In order to enhance the experience of people helping each other, rather than using money to buy services. You can get crown by helping other parents. At the same time, you need to spend the credit when you need help.
Matching & Finding
By filling you and your pets’ detailed information, you have a higher chance to match with other owners. We provide a fast way to post a requirement. And people can find you on the home page.
Calender & Reminder & Chatting
A separate calendar feature allows you to receive alerts from the software. You can view information about pets and pictures in it every day. The software also comes with a chat feature that allows you to communicate with the sitter in a timely manner.
Pets Status Updates
If you become a sitter, you need to update pet‘s status every day to complete the boarding task. You no longer have to worry about the pet.
Walk Through
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