Role
Team Leader
Duration
February - April 2021
Throughout the Spring 2021 semester, I lead a team through the Goal-Directed Design Process to create a dog adoption app. In my lead role, I took on administrative tasks such as scheduling, planning meetings and interviews, sending out reminders for deadlines, facilitating workflow, meeting pre-planning, and being accessible to my team. Additionally, I worked with my team on research, user interviews, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing. I created the Logo for Paw-sibilities, I assembled the research report to look and sound cohesive in Adobe InDesign, and I created the Final Presentation Video. The slides were designed in Adobe Illustrator.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this project was completed virtually. We utilized Discord for ease of communication, Miro (digital whiteboard collaboration software) to perform group activities and organize content, and Figma to design our prototype. This project was completed as part of my Interaction Design I course at Kennesaw State University. The purpose of the project was to learn the methodology of Goal-Directed Design.
Goals
Make dog adoption simple and efficient.
Help dogs find their forever home.
Offer a swipe-system interface.
Challenges
Overcoming the obstacles caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic and navigating this project remotely and through virtual meetings and interviews, from start-to-finish.
Discovering how to implement a conventional swipe system with a unique interface.
Improving ease and efficiency of adopting a dog.
Introduction
The Idea Behind Paw-sibilities
My initial idea was to create a cross-over between a dog adoption app and a dating app. I wanted to apply the conventional swiping system, found in many dating applications, to a pet service. In order to ensure ease of use, while catering to the users' needs, I also intended to employ a questionnaire and a background check for those signing up for the app. Once several of my peers expressed interest in my idea, I became the lead of a team of five.
"How do we make dog adoption simple and efficient?"
This question lead our research and design proceedings and allowed us the freedom to develop new, creative ideas for a pet adoption platform. By utilizing the Goal-Directed Design process, we discovered the best way to employ a user questionnaire, a background check, and a conventional swipe system within our prototype.
Our Process: Goal-Directed Design
We utilized the Goal-Directed Design (GDD) process, created by Alan Cooper, to align our app with user needs. The main focus of GDD is to ensure the designers allow users’ goals to drive their designs. This is achieved through a process that GDD breaks down into five phases: Research, Modeling, Requirements, Frameworks, and Refinements. These phases will be discussed in further detail below.
Research
The research phase gives designers an idea of who they’re designing for, the context in which their app/website will be used, and similar, competitive tech that has pre-dated their own. Our research was conducted with the purpose to gather information on the domain of our app, competitors in our field, and our users' behaviors/goals. We utilized this research to make informative design decisions. The majority of research done in GDD is qualitative. This is because qualitative data provides the most insight into users' behaviors/goals.
Kickoff Meeting
A kickoff meeting gives designers a chance to meet with the stakeholders of a company. This initial meeting is an opportunity to question the stakeholders about what they’re looking for out of the project. It is important to note that we did not have any real stakeholders or clients for this project due to its fictional construct as an academic project.
The kickoff meeting gave us time to assume the roles of stakeholders and question ourselves, as a team, about the ins-and-outs of our product’s purpose. We made assumptions about our users, how the product would play a role in their lives, and the potential problems they may face with pet adoption.
Decisions made during the kickoff meeting:
Limit adoption pool to dogs only.
Two primary users: the pet adopter and the pet owner/breeder looking to surrender a pet.
Users' needs/interests taken care of with questionnaire.
Relaxed, fun, and colorful aesthetic.
Will include features such as a questionnaire, a background check, and a conventional-use matching swipe system.
Will negate the need to visit adoption centers.
View the full breakdown of our kickoff meeting below:
Literature Review
Within the literature review, we gathered context regarding the domain of pet adoption and the conventional swiping system, most commonly known from dating apps. We researched a variety of documents, industry reports, articles, and web searches to aid in achieving our goal of creating an accessible single source of truth for adoption services. Our Literature Review covered:
Things often required on an adoption form
Popular requirements for adopting dogs
Things that those looking to adopt need to know
Kinds of dogs that appeal to different kinds of people
Dog returns
Tinder's success and what it's connected to
How Tinder monetizes their platform
Competitive Audit
The competitive audit gave us the opportunity to investigate existing competitors in our product domain. Since our design team was working on an alternative way to adopt a dog, we focused our audit on some of the biggest brands in the adoption industry, as well as one that specializes in human dating. These apps were chosen because our platform will directly compete with those in the dog adoption industry while mimicking the simplicity of the human dating app world.
PetFinder, WeRescue, All Paws, and Facebook were chosen for their expertise in the adoption field. Due to the swiping design we plan to implement in our app, we chose Tinder as a competitor as they are the most famous company known for their swipe system.
After researching our competitors, we discovered successful features that are easily understood by users, as well as what can be improved going forward.
Stakeholder Interviews
A stakeholder interview is a chance for the design team to prove their credibility after completing the literature review and competitive audit, as well as ask more refined questions about the direction of the project. It would be customary for the conversation to cover topics such as the vision for the product, budget and schedule, capabilities and limitations, business drivers, and stakeholders’ perceptions of their users. As this is a project for a university course, we did not have any real stakeholders. With the added responsibility of taking on the role of a stakeholder, we discussed possible business ventures and opportunities that real stakeholders would pursue:
Marketing strategies through digital advertisements on YouTube, dating apps that also use the swiping system, and social media platforms, as well as word of mouth.
Product to generate income by taking a percentage of the adoption fee.
Product success dependent on positive app reviews, an increase in user rates, and many successful adoptions.
User Interviews
After completing research to better understand our context, we conducted user interviews to gather evidence related to user goals.
While the Covid-19 pandemic and the lack of access to the Institutional Review Board made conducting these interviews in person quite the obstacle, we were still able to engage in five virtual user interviews on fellow students in our Interactive Design I class at Kennesaw State University. Due to this limitation, our research was restricted to the age range of young college students. With five interviews and five team members, each of us had the opportunity to take on the role of a moderator, and several chances to be a facilitator. The interviews, lasting thirty to forty-five minutes, focused on:
Users' relationships with dogs
Users' experiences with pet adoption
Users' feelings towards dating app user interfaces
Why users felt people surrendered dogs
Sample interview questions:
Do you know anything about pet adoption? If so, what has been your
experience with it?Have you ever experienced needing to find a new family for your pet?
What specific things do you look for in an optimal adoption scenario?
What are some reservations you have about using an app for pet adoption
purposes?Why do you feel that people surrender dogs?
How much would you be willing to pay for an adoption?
Affinity Mapping
We used a technique called affinity mapping following each interview. The affinity mapping activity allowed us to find behavior patterns among our interviewees. Once the interviews concluded, we each used Miro to organize our notes into affinity maps. We found the common themes in each person’s answers and grouped them all together. These groups determined our behavioral variables. The variables with a common consensus were used to develop our personas.
Key discoveries:
A majority of users were not willing to break the bank to adopt a dog
A majority of users preferred adoption over breeders
All of our users had good relationships with dogs
All of our users were in favor of a swipe system
Most of our users lived in an apartment full time
For a more extensive look at our research process, check out the research report deliverable linked below:
Modeling
The modeling phase is meant to reduce the research to something manageable and allow the team to focus on user goals as a way to easily inform stakeholders of whom we are designing for. The goal of this process is to create a persona based on data gathered from our contextual research, user interviews, affinity mapping, and behavioral variable mapping.
Personas are a tool used by designers to streamline the design process when creating for a specific purpose or individuals. Though considered an archetype based on behavior patterns, personas are not stereotypes, as they are derived from observed behavior rather than broad assumptions.
Benefits of a persona:
Avoiding elastic users, self-referential design, and edge cases
To build consensus and commitment on design teams
To aid strong communication between designers and stakeholders
Since our app is going to be used for two different purposes, adopting a dog and selling a dog, we decided to create two unique primary personas to represent each goal. A primary persona is created from a collection of significant behavior trends observed during user interviews. We have two primary personas because each of them are symbolic of imperative roles in the Paw-sibilities app.
Meet our Personas
Requirements
The requirements phase is when designers explore how their personas might use their design. The goal of this process is to learn what is required to be in the product, or service, to help users achieve their goals.
Tasks completed in requirements phase:
Revised our problem statement
Created a vision statement
Brainstormed ideas for app design and functionality
Set persona expectations for the product
Developed context scenarios
Constructed a requirements list
In order to develop our requirements list, we first revised our problem statement, a business first mentality.
“The current state of the dog adoption matching service has focused primarily on finding animals for individuals. What existing products/services fail to address is the adoption process. Our product/service will address this gap by offering questionnaires to learn more about the lifestyles of both user types, background checks to ensure the security of both parties, and a matching system based on preferences and personality. ”
Next, we created a vision statement, a user first mentality.
“The new design for Paw-sibilities will help users achieve their ideal dog adoption by allowing them to complete any background checks or application surveys, as well as browse dogs or potential adopters.
This will dramatically improve the adoption process by reducing the amount of stress people experience when adopting or rehoming a dog and lead to more successful adoption pairings. ”
Brainstorming gave us the space as a team to air out all the ideas we had for our app in terms of what it might look like or how it might behave. We created a space free of judgement and encouraged wild, fun ideas. At this point in the requirements phase, our ideas were not driven by GDD, as we did not want our ideas to be limited by its rigid devotion to research and user goals. By allowing ourselves time to brainstorm, we were able to push the boundaries in both design and problem-solving ideation.
Hypothesizing based on our research, we then set persona expectations for our product. Drawing from our persona narratives proved to be helpful in this stage.
Next, we constructed context scenarios for each of our primary personas. Context scenarios tell the story of a particular user persona, with various motivations, needs, and goals, using the future version of your product in the way that is most typical for that persona. At this point, it is important to note that we are not yet discussing form, but strictly the behaviors of the user and the system. As a team, we developed a context scenario for each of our primary personas in a narrative format.
Finally, we created a requirements list by analyzing our context scenarios to understand the personas' needs and design requirements.
Frameworks
Form Factor
Mobile Phone
Posture
Transient (open and closed often)
Input Methods
Touch Screen
Once our personas' needs were established with the help of the requirements list, we began the frameworks phase. We created low-fidelity wireframes in Miro.
In the frameworks phase, my team and I defined the overall structure of the users' experience through the use of key path and validation scenarios.
Validation Scenarios:
features that are used less but still necessary
Alternative Scenarios
Necessary Use Scenarios
Edge Case Scenarios
many
Key Path Scenarios:
What would our primary persona(s) use the most?
What is our primary persona(s) most well worn path?
1 per primary persona
Logo/Color Scheme
I created the logo in Adobe Illustrator. The final product was a group effort. Each team member pitched in their ideas.
The concept for the logo was to create a dog profile in the letter "P". The "P" stands for Paw-sibilties.
The color scheme reflects that of our brand. After much deliberation, we implemented this color scheme throughout our prototype to promote uniformity. In a majority of our prototype, we used certain colors to differentiate between our two primary personas. Much of Daniel's interface was blue (#A8E2ED), while Amy's was a light orange (#FFB685). Meanwhile, the yellow (#F7E9A1) was used for both personas in the questionnaire portion of the onboarding process.
Prototype
Once we completed our low-fidelity wireframes and finished outlining our scenarios, we moved on to prototyping. Our prototype was created in Figma. Our lead prototyper, Jack, organized the Figma workspace. Then, as a team, we all tackled a different part of the app. Personally, I designed the questionnaire section of our prototype, as well as contributing to several other parts of the interface design. Once Jack connected our frames, I, as the team leader, went through each frame and corrected any faulty paths or design mistakes.
Refinements
The refinements phase allows for iterations on design choices through feedback from usability testing. My team conducted two usability testing interviews following the completion of our prototype. I put together two, minute long videos to show to our users. We used videos as a way of guiding our users through the interface. During these interviews, our participants viewed the videos of our prototype and gave us feedback. We asked follow up questions to gain a better understanding of our overall design.
Example Questions:
What stuck out to you about our prototype?
How do you feel about our logo?
Is there anything you didn't see that you feel should be included?
How do you feel about our color choices?
Following each user testing interview, my team and I performed another round of affinity mapping. We then put together a list of improvements for our prototype, based on our findings. We then edited our prototype in Figma.
Edits to make:
Add logos throughout more pages of prototype
Add information to profiles (pics, background info)
Make swiping more obvious
Fill in filters
Bigger pics on user profiles
Add matches to swipe no on
The Final Product
At the conclusion of the Goal-Directed Design process, I created a five minute audio/visual presentation on the progress of our app. I discussed how GDD was applied to each stage of our product, while highlighting the main features Paw-sibilities has to offer.
Click below to watch the final presentation:
In addition to this link, I wanted to show off specific parts of the app below.
The Questionnaire
The questionnaire was created with the intent of catering to the users' needs. It offers different questions depending on the user type, and allows users to customize their search results when they start swiping.
Daniel's questionnaire asks questions about the user's dog preferences to filter their search.
Amy's questionnaire asks questions about the dog the user is putting up for adoption. This aids in filtering the search for the other user type, Daniel.
The Background Check
The background check was created with the intent of keeping all parties safe. Both user types are required to fill out a background check and wait for its clearance prior to having access to other parts of the app. By doing so, the adopter, adoptee, and pet will have a safe and loving experience with Paw-sibilities.
Paw-sibilities will outsource the background checks and give notice to the users of the 3-5 business day wait.
Swipe System
The idea of a swipe system stemmed from the concept of finding an ideal partner. We've seen it work on Tinder, Bumble, and a multitude of other dating services. So, why not Paw-sibilities?
The users are familiar with the concept of a swipe system, as it has become a conventional feature in recent years due to the uprise of dating sites and applications.
Other Notable Features
Filters
We included filters to allow users to customize their search to characteristics they're looking for in a dog or in a home for a dog.
Location Services
We included location services to help users find dogs, or homes for dogs, in their area. We added this as a convenience factor.
Video / Voice Calls
We included video/voice calls to create an ease of communication between both user types prior to setting up a meeting.
Adoption Form
User can complete entire adoption process from the comfort of their home.
Conclusion
Leadership is hard, but it's so worth it. I learned so much throughout this project about conducting myself as a leader. I learned how to effectively communicate with my team. I learned how to navigate leadership in a time of uncertainty that was faced with extensive limitations. Seeing our product come together in the end made it all worth it. I am super thankful to my team, and to Professor Michael Lahey for trusting to me perform well as a team leader this semester.
I am so proud of the work my team and I accomplished over the course of two-three months. Having no little-to-no prior experience with designing an app, I believe we were successful in what we set out to do.
After completing our product, I've already noticed things I'd like to change. For instance, rather than splitting up the prototype, I would've preferred seeing our prototypes integrated into a singular wireframe. I think that would boost the overall flow significantly.
Putting the Goal-Directed Design process to practice gave me confidence in my desire to be a UI/UX Designer. I'm now sure that this is where I want to be; this is what I'm passionate about.
I must extend a big thank you to each of my team members. This project could not have been done without their help. Thank you to David, Jack, Katie, and Ryan!