Social Media
CityPups - Design Sprint
CityPups is a website looking to connect potential adopters with the dog who fits their unique lifestyle. I was given a 5 day solo design sprint involved designing the primary interaction with the website.
I started with very little information on the subject, so dove right in.
Day 1 - Map
We are matching potential owners with their perfect pups. We love rescue, but finding that one dog who will thrive in your lifestyle can be incredibly tricky. It’s not enough to say “this dog is perfect for apartment living”. We need to know:
1:
Energy levels
2:
Are they good with other dogs?
3:
How good are they with kids?
4:
How loud are they?
And a lot more. Current searches are bare bones, don’t offer enough info, and offer a flood of pups that potential adopters can barely wade through.
Map of Possible End-to-End Experience
City living is a whole new dog park (puuun 😀). Dogs were not designed to live with this much restriction and distraction. It takes a special dog to live here in peace and with joy. If we can nail down the dog’s personality traits and communicate that with potential owners, we can make blissful matches of happy families.
Day 2 - Sketch
Lightning Demos
I chose the companies-
Feeld
Feeld is a dating app with a focus on unique matches. It caters to a wide variety of gender identities, orientations and lifestyles. The matches made there can be incredibly specific. I wanted to rip off their profile builder and quiz.
It’s a pretty bare bones look, and not very entertaining, but is a whole 10 page process to build your profile. Lots of detail. The fantasies page gets fun though!
At the end of this, it asks you to give the email and password to create a profile. Which seems a perfect time to ask for it
Petfinder
Petfinder apparently also has a “quiz” now, but it doesn’t have complete enough information.
They did ask about energy level, size and age, as well as a few details about your own household. But they do not ask about kids, or about how much time you’ll be spending with the dog, and some other key questions.
I did this on desktop, but it does appear to be mobile friendly as well.
The home page and the pet profiles are what I’m mostly interested in at Petfinder.
A quick and easy keyword search within a city, state or zip code. Also more generalized searches to click, and featured nearby pups below. Super intuitive, but also very general. I can steal this and make it more precise, while keeping the search this simple.
These profiles have a big slideshow at the top, but I have yet to see any videos in this search. I swear they used to have them? Or maybe it’s just that none of the dogs near me have videos? I’m not sure.
Prominent inquiry button, with FAQs about Charlotte. Those appear to be generated just from the info on her profile.
Speaking of, the info here is super sparse. No mentions of energy levels, though it does say she’s good with other dogs, cats and even kids. So there’s a start. It also says she’s “young”, but only in the bio does it state her exact age. The info is laid out clearly, which I like. But it’s also boring AF and hard to scan.
I do really like the ability to favorite and share profiles. I also like how on the search page it calls out how good a match the pups are. This can help keep track of the best matches, I think.
Crazy Eights
I selected the pet profile screen as the critical screen. It’s the place where the most important decision is made: Do I reach out and ask about this pup?
Solution Sketch
I picked the last sketch to dig into a bit more. I think I’ll probably pull some of the elements of the other sketches into a later version, but for now stayed pretty true to the last sketch.
Day 3 - Decide
Storyboarded my best idea, starting with the home page. I want to focus heavily on the matchmaking aspect of this, so am treating this almost like a doggy dating app. Filling out your profile and wants and needs comes FIRST, before looking at cute doggos.
I’ve got some of the quiz steps mapped out. I think this covers all the entry and form elements, but probably isn’t a complete quiz yet.
The end of the quiz kicks you straight to a search result page.
The search results page is super simple, just showing the selected filters and the best matches up top. While it’s intuitive that the first results should be the best matches, I still think it’s helpful to know more specifically where the pups rank.
When you get to the profile page, you get a video of them first (as long as there is a video, otherwise it’s just photos). You get all their data right up front. Details about their personality, how they thrive, what they hate, what they love. Under that will be where the bio is. But we have a floating baseline bar that allows folks to share, favorite and ask about the pup
Once they click “Ask about me!”, a pop-over brings up a contact form, pre-filling the forms with the info already gathered from the user and the dog. If the info isn’t there, then the underlined parts will be blank and editable.
Day 4 - Prototyping
I used the Marvel platform, which frankly I adore. It’s a level of simple and functional that I truly enjoy. I chose to use my sketches as the baseline, because while they aren’t perfect, I did put in design details I really like. Such as the dogs being walked, and stars on the pictures.
The prototype can be viewed here.
It essentially looks identical to the last photos, since it’s just making those sketches come alive.
Day 5 - Testing
Snagged some interviewees who live in cities and have adopted dogs or want to adopt one. I happen to know a lot of folks like this.
Users Interviewed
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User 1: Works system administration from home, lives with spouse, has 2 rescue dogs, lives in Manor, TX
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User 2: Works IT from home, lives with spouse, has 2 rescue dogs, 1 purebred dog and 2 rescue cats. Lives deep in Austin, TX.
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User 3: Works as a high school teacher, lives with roommate, has 2 rescue dogs, lives in Buda, TX
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User 4: Works as a fraud investigator, lives with GF, has 1 rescue dog, lives in a very small apartment in Austin, TX
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User 5: Works as a barista, lives with BF, has 1 rescue cat and no dogs, lives in small apartment in Colorado Springs, CO
Observations
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Need to add back button; even with the assumption that this would be in a browser. “I wouldn’t trust the browser to take me back to the right spot,” said one.
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2 out of 3 thought the picture carousel on the profile page would be taking you to the other recommended dogs from the search.
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Stars for recommended dogs are good, but would make more sense if filled in
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Tiny dogs in sketches- delightful
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The quiz functionality was a hit!
Conclusion
Users were delighted by the quirky styling, and excited by the quiz aspect of the website. The overall concept sparked intrigue, interest, and even hope. “I’ve had so many reactive dogs,” said one. “Just being able to tell a search ‘my dog will not live with dogs, but will see lots of dogs on walks and needs to be ok with that’ will help me find a fit that makes us all happy.”
I’ve learned the quiz needs to be even more in depth than I have sketched out. People have lots of specific ideas for what would help them, so mapping those out should be easy. I’ve also learned people are wary of browser back buttons on websites like this.
Overall, this was a promising sprint.