PawPal
Introducing our innovative dog community app designed to seamlessly connect locals for dog boarding while fostering trust through interactive playdates.
My Role: UX Research, UX/UI Design, Product Manager
Design Tool Kit: Figma, Miro, Maze
Many individuals face challenges in establishing a reliable support system for their dog boarding needs, which can significantly restrict their lifestyle choices.
Dog owners are limiting their life when they can’t find someone to watch their dogs.
PROBLEM
Develop an MVP that connects local dog parents, facilitating opportunities for their dogs to socialize while also providing a platform to seek assistance with dog boarding when needed.
GOAL
HOW DID IT START?
Witnessing the struggles of my dog-parent friends in finding suitable sitters for their furry companions highlighted a real problem. Affording regular dog boarding or sitting services isn't feasible for everyone, and not everyone has a large support network of family and friends to rely on.
Given that many individuals face this common challenge, could there be an opportunity to leverage this shared experience to our advantage?
Every dog owner encounters the same dilemma: "Who can take care of my dog while I'm away?"
How might we design a new way of dog boarding that is convenient for every dog owner regardless of their finances and social circle?
Create a community to connect dog owners in the neighborhood, providing them with a support system to ask for help when they need dog boarding.
SOLUTION
Designing a ‘‘new way / new app’’ to find dog boarding based on social support. In this innovative platform, dog owners can exchange favors for boarding services within their neighborhood. Furthermore, they can arrange playdates to facilitate socialization for their beloved pets while fostering a sense of trust within the local community.
‘‘How to Find Affordable Dog Boarding?”
Exchange favors for dog boarding with local dog parents in the neighborhood
Users can help each other through ‘‘Pal Help’’ feature within their neighborhood. The app provides users with a space to post their needs for dog boarding, sitting, and walking.
‘‘How to Motivate Users to Help Others?’’
Gamification + Publicly display user engagement
Users will be rewarded for their actions with badges, boosting their motivation.
The app's scheduling system enables users to track their progress, and showcasing this progress on their profiles serves as a source of motivation through recognition.
‘‘How to Trust a Stranger?’’
Build the trust through attending playdates
Users can find nearby playdates to socialize their dogs and, most importantly, establish trusted connections with other dog owners before considering boarding, sitting, or walking arrangements.
(Win Win)
How Did I Get to This Solution?
~RESEARCH
Why Should We Solve the Problem?
There are more dog owners than ever in 2022
70% of U.S. households (90.5 million homes) owned a pet as of 2022. That means more people will benefit from the product.
Why is Dog Boarding Such a Widespread Issue?
Dogs in kennels are at risk of contracting diseases and parasites.
Spending on dog care services has reached $979.2 million in 2021 and one-third can’t afford it.
To assess potential market opportunities, a competitor analysis was conducted by evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. The identification of industry competitors was achieved through comprehensive market research.
Competitor Analysis
While paid-sitting apps are very popular, most participants are still unsatisfied with the concept. They think the sitters are not quite experienced, and the service is not genuine.
User Interviews
Diving deep into attitudinal research to learn more about dog care experiences and dog owners’ behave.
To gain deeper insights into dog owners’ experiences and behaviors, we conducted 4 in-depth 1:1 interviews with target users. The participants were recruited from different geolocations to observe differences in patterns.
“Sitting and boarding are significantly more expensive in ski towns. I just can’t afford it.”
“I don’t trust the dog sitting apps. The sitters are looking for getting quick cash.”
“We can’t ask our friends for sitting all the time; it’s a huge favor, and we feel indebted.”
The Core Reason for the Lack of Social Support
It’s hard to make new connections for dog owners to create social support for their dog
All participants have difficulty approaching other dogs & owners randomly. Two of the participants mentioned they don’t want to drive to the dog park in order to meet local dog owners.
What Are the People's Pain Points About Dog Boarding?
Not everybody can regularly afford paid dog care services, and they limit their lives when they can’t afford them.
Cost
The sitters at dog care apps provide the service to get quick cash. They may not necessarily like dogs or know how to take care of them.
Not trusting the sitters from sitting apps
Unable to frequently seek help from friends
While asking for help from a friend is a great option, two of the participants dislike the feeling of being indebted. The other two, don’t have friends to ask for help to watch their dog.
What Do People Need From the New Boarding System?
Allow their dog to socialize with other dogs while they are away.
An experienced sitter who owns a dog with similar traits.
A more genuine and affordable dog boarding system.
Surprisingly, all participants mentioned that socializing their dogs is very challenging, just as much as dog boarding is.
Defining the Persona
By using what we learned from patterns, we created a persona to stay human-centered throughout all design decisions and better communicate with the team members.
Meet Scott…
How might we build a community that can serve the users for boarding and socializing their dogs?
~DEFINE
I gained significant insights through my research and now time to brainstorm for the solution space…
Since everybody has the same problem, It must be easier to empathize with other dog owners' situations. What if there is a dog community app to exchange favors in the neighborhood for dog boarding?
In this stage, in order to increase the acquisition and engagement of the product, I had to do more market research to learn:
What is the strategy for building an engaging community app?
What is the best way to motivate users to take the desired action?
Gamification is the key to keeping users motivated to be engaged
Prioritization
Many potential opportunities could be pursued to solve our problem statement. We connected the dots from research findings and clearly envisioned the app's features on the MVP stage.
What if…
there was an app where people could exchange favors for dog boarding while developing trust through playdates?
Information Architecture
To plan the architecture of the app and where the features will be placed, we digitized a site map to organize the screens in a way that would be logical and intuitive for users.
Task Flows
We prioritized flows users might take and focused on 3 of them that will impact the most users and have the most significant gain.
~IDEATE
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Branding & UI Kit
Creating a Brand of Reassure, Warm and Trustworthy
We focused on balancing PawPal's joyful, friendly nature while maintaining trustworthiness and reliability while creating the identity. The green color was chosen as the primary to represent hope for a better future for dog parents and all screens of the app design comply with WCAG at level AA.
~ VALIDATE
Usability Testing
The test analysis proves that the flow works as intended and the concept delighted 90% of the participants.
Conducted 6 moderated usability testing via Zoom to validate the design decisions. We recruited the participants from dog owners aged between 26 and 48. During the test, the participants kept thinking aloud while completing the tasks and exploring the app.
Observe and identify all the pain points in the design
The testing goals were:
Discover the opportunities for improvement
Learn more about the focus group’s behavior and preferences
Understand whether all the flows work as intended
TASK 1
Sign into the app and find a way to complete your profile.
TASK 2
Exchange favors for dog boarding with dog parents in your neighborhood.
TASK 3
Find a playdate for your dog and schedule it through the app.
Iterations
Lack of valuable content: 60% of the participants mentioned how important to see a person’s photo to trust them.
#1 PROBLEM:
BEFORE
Added dog parent’s profile photo to build trust and recognition.
SOLUTION:
AFTER
Confusion between action buttons: 80% of the participants got confused with the ‘‘Connect’’ and ‘‘Chat’’ buttons.
#2 PROBLEM:
BEFORE
Instead of changing the taxonomy, we replaced the icon+text button with the icon button to prevent confusion and make it more intuitive.
SOLUTION:
AFTER
PawPal
The New Way of Creating Social Support for Dog Boarding.
Learnings
To create a strong product strategy, understand the root of the problem
As someone new to the role of being a dog parent, I maintained an open-minded attitude throughout the research process, eager to learn about their unique challenges. This mindset enabled me to craft a robust strategy that not only addresses the issue of dog boarding but also empowers individuals to establish the social support they need.
Prioritize and, most importantly, filter the feedbacks
While all participants completed the tasks intuitively, we got a lot of feedback from participants in the testing phase. It's crucial to determine which feedback is about the product's usability and which is just a user preference.
We will add a commenting function under the posts to get users engaged with each other. Based on our community app strategy research, creating space for users to interact with each other was one of the crucial criteria.
Furthermore, we will conduct a re-evaluation of the design to identify any areas where screen accessibility can be enhanced. Following this, we will proceed with the design hand-off for launch.
