dog grow case study

Works

Spotify Feature

Dog Grow

End-to-end platform that encourages and assists in dog care, from training to healthcare to task management.

OVERVIEW

A place to see your dog’s growth, in every way. DogGrow is a platform that tracks your dog’s life in milestones, behavior, health, training, habits, and memories. This platform will not only monitor information related to your pet, but provide you with comprehensive data of your pet’s breed and trends to be shared with those who care for your pet too, like your family, your doctor, your trainer and more.

DogGrow was made to serve as a one tool resource, where owners can manage their dog’s care while fulfilling their dog’s needs.

ROLE

TIMELINE

TOOLS

PRODUCT DESIGNER

BRAND DESIGNER

80 HOURS

FIGMA - FIGJAM - OPTIMALSORT

PROBLEM DISCOVERY

Determined to provide Theo, the miniature schnauzer stray from the OC Animal Shelter, with the best care, we faced the need to organize information on a progressive timeline. This grew from scattered notes, missed training goals and endless online searching, keeping track of Theo’s needs became chaotic.

To better understand how to improve Theo and his owner’s experience, I searched to understand a user’s needs and goals when caring for a loved dog. They were looking to track his progress, set reminders and celebrate every milestone. I explored the topics of customization, intuitive learning, and information architecture to build an effective and supportive application.

The question became

HOW MIGHT WE IMPROVE A USER’S EXPERIENCE IN ENGAGEMENT FOR MUSIC DISCOVERY?

The question became

HOW MIGHT WE CREATE AN INTUITIVE PLATFORM THAT HELPS DOG OWNERS TRACK AND CELEBRATE THEIR PET’S UNIQUE JOURNEY?

Crafting Pet Care

Construct and evolve Dog Grow's user friendly education and management system

Creating an end-to-end application that prioritizes the features of training, learning insights, reminders and health tracking

Screen Expansion x Visual Hierarchy

Interactive training timeline to display progression through each level

Users can review an interactive timeline on their training progress to see what they've accomplished and what's ahead

Visual hierarchy is utilized with screen expansion, to provide an improved seamless experience.

Creating connection between pet owners and trusted caretakers

Caregivers Network facilitates pet care, ensuring reliable and consistent updates

Users have the ability to create a network of caregivers, inviting and scheduling reliable pet caretakers

This feature is designed to allow pet owners and caregivers to have clear direction when it comes to caring for a pet's specific needs, facilitating communication and updates

Consistency offered daily, weekly, monthly

A place for a pet's routine, providing daily basics, enrichment, and scheduling

Users can review their pet's routine, to meet their daily needs while planning for the future

Dogs thrive on a schedule, owners can organize and be reminded to check back in on their ongoing events

RESEARCH

at a glance

I conducted a competitive analysis, user interviews, affinity mapping, and user personas to drive and support my research. These categories of research allowed me to dive deeper into the existing market while understanding and organizing my research participant’s experiences. This information contributed to my overall design and feature implementation.

Exploring What’s Out There

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

I evaluated other competitive brands in the market to discover what exists in means of dog training, healthcare management, schedule organization, etc. I explored user-interfaces and features, discovering common practices and defining differences.

PuppR

Dog training app that provides step-by-step video instruction for basic tricks and obedience.

Great Pet Care

All-in-one platform to gain better access to pet healthcare, including managing medical records, communication with vets, etc.

PetDesk

Organizes your pet’s health and care, connecting to providers, requesting appointments, and discovering local services.

Understanding Our Users

USER RESEARCH

Objectives

Determine the goals users
have when establishing a relationship with their dog

Gather an idea of ideal features that help users manage and meet the needs of their dog. Training, healthcare, feeding, etc.

Discover obstacles and pain points that affects maintaining dog care

Users manage multiple areas that fulfill dog care, what factors contribute to making that difficult?

Gain insight on the user lifestyles, developing realistic tools to better care for their dog

Users will develop new lifestyles to include their dog. This include scheduling, exercise, socialization, etc.

Understanding Our Users

User Interviews and

Affinity Mapping

User Interviews and

Affinity Mapping

Pursuing user interviews and affinity mapping provided qualitative and quantitative insights into experiences, motivations and pain points.

Our research participants answered these questions about their dog ownership experience.

USER INTERVIEW RESULTS

AFFINITY MAP

Discovering Patterns

Once the qualitative and quantitative research was observed, it was time to track patterns that contributed to the insights discovered.

TOPICS EXPLORED

I discovered these insights

Information is Relative

Thrive in Consistency

Connection Where It Matters

Intuitive & Convenience

Enthusiasm & Curiosity

Identity & Connection

Information is Relative

Thrive in Consistency

Connection Where It Matters

GENERATING USER PERSONAS

Insights Into Personas

DESIGN GOALS

Integrate and Engage Effectively

Through my research, I began to turn my objectives into design goals. I was seeking to create a functional but meaningful design that would bring ease, comfort, and utility to users and their pets.

TASK FLOWS & USER FLOWS

Implementing Structure

TASK FLOWS

USER FLOWS

LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

BRANDING

Approaching Design

Creating DogGrow from scratch called for a mood board and brand style tile to develop a brand identity of inviting colors and playful illustrations while establishing structure.

MOODBOARD

BRANDING

LOGO

COLORS

TYPOGRAPHY

UI KIT

DogGrow’s brand identity included a playful and friendly energy, brought on a colorful palette and fun illustrations while providing structure. This included bright, animated visual elements while incorporating UI features that facilitated a pleasant user experience. This included components of scheduling, training lesson progression, specific vet care notes, and caregivers session. These components provide direction in every category.

1, 2 Testing

Usability Testing

Participants completed 3 tasks, where we observed and discussed their train of thought, movement patterns and enjoyment of the experienced. Based on their feedback and findings, I prioritized improving design cues for direction and sizing.

OPPORTUNITY FOR PROGRESSION

Visual Cues

Through including images, color contract, icons, and differing shapes, I was able to orchestrate progression and direction through the training lessons feature.

Since this screen holds so much information, it was important to provide cues that displayed different meanings while giving the screen visual space to expand and reduce.

ICONS ARE ICONIC

Iconography Provides Direction

I updated the layout from images to icons, providing more clarity in the purpose of these buttons that led to platform features.

Utilizing color and contrast allowed for greater range to dive deeper into the differing platform features and what they have to offer.

LET ME PET YOUR DOG, PLEASE

Designing for Two Users

DogGrow's Caregivers feature is designed to include the pet owner and a pet sitter, where the pet owner sets up the session while a the pet sitter completes the session to check off their care tasks, while providing the owner with peace of mind.

This feature includes an overview, owner notes, session dates, a check list and the opportunity to collect images, training sessions, and messages. The use of buttons throughout the screen allows for the variety of options while preventing a long scroll.

FINAL PRODUCT

Created Something We’re Proud Of

Theo is picking up his most recent training session, Level 4 Obedience, continuing on with Week 5-7. Theo completes Recall 2! After, his owner and him are able to review training insights specific to Theo’s breed along with what’s to come in their next training session.

Explore Prototype

Theo’s owner creates a Caregivers Network Session invite, through creating an event. They fill out all of the important information like the caregiver’s contact, date and notes. At the time of the session, the caregiver begins the session. They can review care directions from the owner and share updates through pictures and notes.

Explore Prototype

Theo has an upcoming vet appointment that his owner inputs
through the calendar feature. After the visit is over, DogGrow sends a notification to remind the owner to fill out after visit notes like updated weight and record changes.

Theo has an upcoming vet appointment that his owner inputs through the calendar feature. After the visit is over, DogGrow sends a notification to remind the owner to fill out after visit notes like updated weight and record changes.

Explore Prototype

TAKEAWAYS & IMPACTS

New Branding & Visual Layout

The redesigned website reflects the cozy, welcoming atmosphere of the physical store. Through the use of colors, typography, and imagery, this established a strong emotional connection while creating a consistent experience across digital and physical touchpoints.

Menu Categorization & Organization

Clear and intuitive menu categories improve the site’s information architecture, helping users navigate with ease. This allows users to find items quickly, encourages exploration, and enhances their overall experience.

Improved Online Ordering & Website Traffic

This new system includes more attention to detail when it comes to visual layout and user flows. I develop features that include menu information architecture, including customization options, past orders, live tracking and map features. This reduces uncertainty while providing direction, both figuratively and literally, streamlining the customer journey.

Routine for Reliability

There are several moments to engage users to return to this product, with the goal to improve their overall relationship and provide better for their dogs. Through system reminders, event planning, tracking physical health, and progressive learning, this engages users to revisit to continue on with their goals.

Dog Health Care Standards

Creating categories for dog health care is unique and fragile, with a wide variety of characteristics to consider. A dog's genetic and breed makeup can go from 3 to 15 breeds, which can mark them to be carriers of certain conditions like hip dysplasia, cancer, etc. When it comes to environments, dogs can be products of rescues, irresponsible breeding, or carry behavioral indicators of trauma. Knowing this, I would want to spend additional time on research to improve the healthcare features of this product. Referencing human medical care platforms to develop improved UX/UI while creating space for these unique dog categories that touch across physical and mental health.

My next steps

Develop a training program campaign that will collect information on how enjoyable the user-experience is in completing a training level.

Connect with animal healthcare and dog training teams to develop a feature that allows them to contribute to a dog’s user profile with their specific health/training information.

Works

Spotify Feature

Made with coffee and care

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Made with coffee and care

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Made with coffee and care

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