Paws and Play
Paws and Play is a three-part User-Centred research project conducted throughout a semester of my UCD class. It revolves around a chosen topic which in this case is a dog walking service with an aim to help people find someone to walk their dog in consideration of our busy lives. The client for this is an animal welfare charity who focuses on improving the dog wellbeing and reducing dog surrender, especially dog owners and lovers.
-
The first milestone of this project focuses on getting to know the user groups by doing research and analysing their needs and objectives.
-
Milestone Two’s objective is integrating all those insights found from research, surveys and interviews through designing prototype/s for a mobile application.
-
Milestone Three is all about creating high-fidelity prototypes to showcase varying features and functionality of the app in different scenarios in consideration of our customer’s demands and needs, putting this app through real-life user testing to test its effectiveness and usability.
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash.
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash.
Primary Logo
Icon
Primary Logo
Icon
Problem
The problem for Dog Owners is looking for reliable dog walkers that can handle different dog personalities whilst maintaining their safety. Whereas the dog walkers’ problem is not having enough control over their job as a walker whether it be a casual or a full-time gig as most of the time, they wait for an offer instead of them being able to actively look and be in charge of their job.
Solution
Paws & Play put both parties’ problem into consideration and its functions and features within the app answer these by firstly, creating comprehensive profiles for the walkers so that owners can pick and make sure they know all the important details of who’s going to take care of their dog. This goes both ways as dog walkers can also see the owner and their dog’s profile. Dog walkers will also have the power to browse who’s in need of service and apply to express their interest in taking the job. Paws & Play also offers the function of having a schedule such to promote consistency and security for the walker’s job.
Overview
Paws & Play aims to be an all-in-one user-friendly app for both dog owners and walkers that features different functionalities that benefits our users. It’s an app that provides walking service for dogs whether it be a one-time thing or a scheduled walk throughout the week or month.
Insights:
Having two different users calls for a separate survey between the category (dog owners and dog walkers) to get to know their attributes, characteristics and needs as users. Based on the survey, we successfully interviewed 18 participants in every age bracket to see some pattern to their answers to the rest of the questions.
-
1. How old are you?
2. What is your occupation?
3. How many dog/s do you own?
4. Tell me why you bought/adopted your dog/s?
5. As an owner, what are some benefits of owning a dog?
6. How about some disadvantages?
7. Can you list some of your dog’s needs in its daily life?
8. How often do you walk your dog/s?
9. How often do you think your dog is required to be walked?
10. What hinders you from fulfilling this required amount of walk?
11. Would you consider a dog walking service?
12. If not, why is that?
13. Tell us some of your concerns if you ever consider a dog walking service?
-
1. Are you currently a dog walker or interested in being one in the future?
2. How old are you?
3. What is your occupation?
4. Have you ever owned or currently own a dog?
5. What is the main reason for being a dog walker?
6. How often would you be able to do this?
7. If you’re doing this for work are you thinking of doing it as either part-time, full-time or casual?
8. How do you source your clients?
9. Tell me why you prefer this source?
10. What are some features would you like to see in a dog walking service app that would help you?
-
The common theme in the disadvantages of owning a dog is not being able to plan a holiday without a planned accommodation for their dogs.
-
Another one is the cost of maintaining their dogs as they can be high maintenance with expenses like vet fees, food, alternative arrangements, etc.
-
No matter what the age and their occupation is the main reason why they bought/adopted their dog is for companionship and this is also the main answer for the benefits of having a dog alongside physical activity and entertainment.
-
Most of our participants walk their dogs daily and just a few who walks them once every other day.
Survey Questions:
-
The other answer I found interesting is that they don’t feel comfortable with a stranger walking their dog which also corresponds with the most common answer when asked of their concerns if they ever consider a dog walking service which is the dog walker being untrustworthy and safety reasons. The next common answer is that their dogs being not fully accustomed with other dogs and therefore not getting along with dogs.
-
42% of them answered “mostly laziness” which is what hinders them from fulfilling these required walks and because of not having enough time due to their life responsibilities such as work or university.
-
It’s a 50-50 when asked if they will consider a dog walking service and there is no common answer as some reasoned that it comes as your responsibility when adopting a dog, giving them the time to take a walk outside and liking the physical activity that comes with it.
Age Bracket
Occupation
User Profiles
Scenarios:
-
Lily, a full-time executive assistant for the director of the company for 5 years now and working on her career future by pursuing a higher level has a lot of responsibilities both in her work as well as motherhood with 2 children ageing from 5 and 7 years old.
Lily looked up the app when she got home and set up a profile that clearly presents her dog’s characteristics and behaviours for the dog walkers to be aware as even though she had trained Pomi to socialise with other dogs and some basic training when it was young, he still gets overly excited with other furry friends as he had grown up thinking that it’s play time as well as not knowing the basic walking etiquette such as walking straight without
getting distracted every second, and therefore walking Pomi with other dogs’ concerns Lily. Since creating Pomi’s profile needing a walking service 2-3 days a week, some expression of interest has come through from dog walkers who offers a one-on-one walk with Pomi and even someone who is willing to train him the basic walking behaviours.
Lily picked one from those who sent out an offer of one-on-one walk with Pomi with a promise of a regular schedule and agreed to a cancellation fee to avoid last minute changes and who also agreed to do a little orientation with Pomi to see the compatibility.
-
Ricky is an international student and working part time in most of his available time to support himself financially. He had a week of exams, group meetings and part-time work so, he could not make any time to walk his dog and he started worrying about his dog having depression as the dog’s needs could not be fulfilled in the week. He decided to ask his friend for help to walk his dog, but unfortunately, they were all busy just as he was.
His friend introduced him to download ‘Paws & Play which is an online platform to find dog walkers in his area. He downloads the app straight away and he would first see the “Where is your location?” search bar. He puts in his suburb and tabs ‘search’ and he sees a list of dog walkers near him with their names and ratings of each accompanied by how many jobs they’ve completed.
He clicks a dog walker with 4.8-star rating and there was a brief introduction with sizes of dogs they can handle and at the bottom of the page had customer reviews. He decided to hire this dog walker and he proceeded to make a booking by tapping the booking button floating on the top right corner of the screen which had a selection box for date and time of the walker's available time. He booked the walk for today afternoon at 2pm and he could close the app feeling excited to meet a potentially regular person to walk his dog when he is not available.
-
Jonathan is a 63-year-old retired animal lover. He loves walking his own 2 dogs and finds himself with lots of spare time throughout the days since becoming a retiree. He tries to keep as fit and active as possible and walking for at least an hour every day is a goal of his. Jonathan is not the most tech savvy person, however he would love to increase his knowledge and be able to use an application to gather more clients for his dog walking. He downloads an app and can now successfully book and schedule clients according to his own timetable.
By setting up his dog walking profile, he has opened the possibility for potential clients in his chosen area to book him in for the purpose of dog walking. Jonathan easily views his bookings through the application and can make any adjustments and amendments throughout the week. He now can easily cancel and reschedule bookings through the application that may interfere with his everyday life. He can easily access new walking trails to take his clients dogs to and finds them categorised by location.