The Evolution of Expert Dog Collar
As a part of the CareerFoundry's Certified UX Designer course, I was asked to create a general app to access experts in any field. I started this project with the idea of creating an app to access expert dog trainers. The project evolved into creating a health tracking app for dog owners instead. This is my process from dog training app to dog health tracking app.
"Dog owners need a reliable e-collar that meets all of their needs to find their dog's location, monitor their health, and manage their behavior."
Competitive Analysis:
Dog Training Surveys:
I sent out an online survey about dog ownership and training. My results helped me to identify perceptions about dog training and dog owner pain points.
The main insight I got was that people were only interested in having a few points of contact with a dog trainer, such as only when they have a puppy, and weren't interested in seeing someone on a regular basis.
This would mean that we would only have a customer use the app several times over the course of maybe 1-2 years rather than keeping them as a customer for life. This got me thinking about other directions by asking more questions about what information users found interesting and could use throughout their dog's entire life cycle.
Survey Questions:
What method do you use or have used to train your dog?
Why did you choose that method?
What frustrates you about dog training in general?
What challenges do you face as a dog owner?
When and where would you use a dog training app?
What is one session with a professional dog trainer worth to you?
How long do you feel you can commit to dog training per week?
User Personas:
I created user personas to capture how and why someone would be interested in using this app. Although we were still focusing a lot on dog training and behavior here, Carrie's persona ignited my initial ideas for the features of health tracking, walk tracking, and location.
What were the main insights you got from the interviews?
The daily routine of a dog owner
The pain points of a dog owner
People were interested in connecting socially with their dogs
Less interested in training and more interested in dog's health
User Journey Maps
My initial design incorporated features to fit the needs of my first user personas. I incorporated a “vibrate” feature to fit the persona’s need to control their dog’s behavior in public, similar to a shock collar. After my second and third rounds of user testing, the grand majority of dog owners said that this wasn’t a feature they would use and ethically were afraid that people would take it too far and hurt their dog. I decided to take this feature out.
Both of my original user personas Bethany and Carrie showed a lot of interest in health tracking more than training. After doing more surveys, I realized that dog owners were less interested in an app about dog training, and more interested in an app that could help them track walking distances and their dog’s health. This type of app could be used on a daily basis rather than reaching out to an expert dog trainer every once and awhile or just when the user had a puppy.
I realized that health tracking and location was a better direction for the product. Health and fitness tracking can be incorporated into the user’s daily life. Everyday dog owners need to exercise their dog to keep it healthy and happy. Users showed that they highly valued knowing their dog’s safety and location in case they got lost.
Another benefit of health and fitness tracking is preventative vet care. Users can avoid expensive vet bills if they are able to keep their pet healthier and happier.
Card Sorting Exercise and rebuilding the SiteMap
I decided on the main navigation bar by doing a card sorting exercise.
What navigation problems did the app have?
The app had problems with the top and bottom navigation bars and what/where to categorize each feature.
What type of card sorting method did you work with? Online
How did the participants group the information?
The participants were able to help me see bigger picture groupings that fit the navigation bar: Walk, Connect, Activity, and Map.
What changes did you propose based on the card sorting?
The card sorting was the first exercise I did where a lot of people were upset about the "shock" or "vibrate" feature. This was the first time I really reconsidered this and started testing whether or not it was really valuable to users.
First Sketches
Low Fidelity
Mid Fidelity
I made many changes to the above prototypes, especially taking out the "vibrate" feature.
The final version of Expert Dog Collar came from these two iterations and a lot of feedback about content, features, and UI design in the final usability testing.
Final Usability Testing:
I sat down with seven participants and we walked through the app.
Here were the Usability Testing Questions:
What are your first thoughts that come to mind about the home page? What are
you most interested in clicking on?
Task A: You’d like to check how much activity Ginger has gotten today, how would you
check that?
Task B: You also have another dog, how could you check to see what her information
today? Great let’s go back to the home page.
Task C: Imagine Ginger has escaped from your home! You get a notification that she
has left home, how could you track her and bring her back?
Task D: Imagine You’re taking Ginger on a walk off-leash, and she’s really interested in
a big pile of garbage. You’d like her to stop eating/smelling it. How could you get her
attention back using the app?
What were you aiming to find out with the user tests?
I was aiming to find out how the users perceived the app and what changes needed to be made to communicate the information better.
At which phase of the project did you test?
I tested the project at the mid-fidelity phase.
Who were the test subjects? Did they meet the target group?
My test subjects were American and Canadian women. They met the target group for women, but not for men. I needed more men to help me test.
What method did you use for testing? (Remote, moderated, etc?) Moderated
What user insights did you get from the tests? I changed the majority of the UI after doing the testing. The testers found the icons to be confusing. I changed the color scheme and the fonts. I changed the language when giving directions using the shock method.
Final UI of Expert Dog Collar
Project Challenges:
Direction: The initial challenges that I faced were that research revealed a potential new direction for the product and I had to decide whether we should stick to the original problem or try to solve a new one. I came to a solution by projecting which direction would be more profitable. I decided to change the direction and create a different product to keep a customer for the entire dog’s life cycle, rather than just dog training in puppyhood, which would be more profitable.
Features: The next challenge was figuring out what information was most important in the health tracking app because there were a lot of features we could build to track the dog’s health. Many dog owners that I interviewed had very specific concerns. We decided to look at what were the biggest concerns throughout the entire dog’s life cycle. I decided that heart rate and exercise were the most important and could be applied to every dog’s situation.
Research Participants: Another challenge I faced was interviewing even numbers of dog owners with puppies, middle-aged dogs, and elderly dogs. I found that the concerns ranged widely for each of these demographics were very different based on the dog’s age. People with middle age and elderly dogs were much more concerned with health tracking. People with puppies were much more concerned about knowing the location of their dog at all times since there was a higher risk of the dog running off. I solved this problem in several ways, first by combining the features of health tracking and location. Next, I took a little longer time to complete research so that we had at least three participants in each demographic.
To Train or Not to Train: I also faced some problems on deciding whether or not to incorporate a training aspect into the smart collar and app. I tested the possibility of using a “shock” feature since many training collars use this feature and it was expressed during some of the user interviews that participants would like an app to go with their shock collar. I tested people’s reaction to a “vibrate/shock” feature. The results were that people were afraid it could harm the dog, so we removed that feature.
What did I learn?
Pre-Project Preparation: Looking at the goals of the entire project, scheduling tasks ahead of time such as reviewing the BRD, preparing information for developers, how best to organize the project data, locating ways to connect with community members before designing anything. Look online for inspiration before starting the project.
Technical skills improvement: Implementing more technical skills time into work week 2 video tutorials/week. Finding a study buddy to practice this with.
Research Checklists: write down questions as the research goes along with insights, record the research sessions for review, ensure that research participants are diverse, do a dress rehearsal before interviewing participants.
