Conceptual project
PERFECT PAWS
A pet adoption app where people can find and adopt the right companion that matches their lifestyle.
Pets are human best friends. However, roughly 6.5 million abandoned animals enter shelters and foster each year in the U.S., but only half of them are adopted. Besides, adopted pets are sent back to shelters with an adoption return rate of about 8-10% of all adoptions (AHS).
| Pet Adoption Statistics for 2021 by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals |
Although millions of animals need homes, it is hard to adopt one. With so many animals to choose from, it is challenging to find the right companion.
With these pain points in mind, I designed Perfect Paw, a pet adoption app, to help adopters connect with a pet that matches their desires and lifestyle.
If this solution is successful, we'll see:
This is how I came up with the solutions, let me walk you through.
Competitive Analysis
User Interview & Survey
Affinity Map
User Persona
User Journey
Problem Statement
Brainstorming Feature
Roadmap
Sitemap
Wireflow
Usability Testing
High-Fidelity Prototype
Affinity Map
Final Prototype
Based on my research, I found that users generally had mixed feelings and experiences about the pet adoption/rescue process. With an understanding of the users, I analyzed and synthesized/the research data and came up with personas of different types of users for the app. And I decided to focus on Sarah and John, a first-time adopter and a second-time pet owner, to put my ideation efforts.
With the user journey, persona, and insights from the research stage, I generated a series of How Might We questions to fuel my process for a solution brainstorming session later on.
Next, I started the brainstorming stage with the listed How Might We questions. I spent 2-3 minutes brainstorming the solutions for each problem to develop as many solutions as possible. Then, I arranged all the ideas into a 2x2 feature prioritization matrix to rank the level of effort and value. This helps to communicate with stakeholders in terms of the priority of product development.
After deciding what features to include, I created a site map to define the overall content structure of the Perfect Paws app. The goal is to make a logical and easy route for users to navigate while shying them away from being overwhelmed when my persona is in the mood for looking a pet for adoption
and doesn't want to waste time to obtain the goals.
I created a wire flow to represent the layout of the pages in tandem with communicating ideas regarding interaction design and user workflows. These designs focused on social interaction, recommendations, and privacy settings to help users stay engaged with their loved ones within the app and have complete control over their activities.
With the initial prototype ready, I then drafted an early usability test plan by defining the core tasks for users to complete, and questions for them during the testing process through Maze.
I used Maze to create 4 Tester paths to test with 7 users:
Solution:
Users are easily confused between "sign up" and sign in."
➡️ Arrange the "Sign-up" and "Sign-in" buttons equally. Change Sign-in to Log-in. Using different verbs, colors, and styles helps the user make fewer mistakes.
On the Sign-up task, testers can't go back if they mistakenly click the Login button.
➡️ Add a sentence "Don't have an account? Sign up". Then, users can click it to sign-up for an account. Vice versa, add a sentence "Already have an account? Login", so users can go back to the login page.
Wireframe testing helped my design evolve in a way that made it more usable and functional. It helps me find the errors early in the process, which saves me time and energy for building high-fidelity.
Copyright © Linh Nguyen | Made by Linh Nguyen with ☕️ and 💖 in Orange County, California.
