Background

The image above is my friend Nicole at an animal shelter trying to find a dog to rescue. As she walked around the shelter she felt overwhelmed at how many dogs were in the shelter. How am I ever going to figure out which one is “the one”, when there’s that “click” when you know it’s a match.

Problem Statement

Many people go through a similar experience when trying to find a pet. When it comes to adopting a dog, the decision process can be long and extensive. But once the decision is made, the hard part should be over. The next step should be the easy part – the search for that “click”.

Objectives

• Provide for a delightful experience that brings fun to finding a pet.
• To create a mobile experience for users to easily access and search for a dog to adopt.
• Increase the likelihood of compatibility with user input and easily understood information of each dog.
• Create an empathetic experience that evokes a response from the user to create a higher level of engagement.

Personas & User Stories

I started off the process with trying to understand what the motivations are to adopt an animal. I utilized my friend’s adoption story as a starting point. As with her, there can be a number of reasons as to why anyone would want to adopt an animal including: a person’s age, chapter of life, personal goals, companionship, and protection. After brainstorming, I created several personas that represent these possible reasons. I decided to elaborate on Allison’s user story and drew it into storyboard form.

Information Structure

I listed out the main tasks that users would need to do to start their canine search. The key objects and actions were then paired together and placed into a prioritization matrix where the tasks were prioritized based on the frequency of use and the volume of users. This process helped to create a basis for the content structure for the Matchdog application.

Concept Sketches

After organizing the content I started to sketch out screens for the app’s user flow. Below are sketches for the Match pathway that aims to match the user and the user’s dog to a dog within the database. Some inspiration came from dating apps where a person is romantically matched to another person based on their profile. Here, not only does the user have a profile but so does her dog. Therefore, a match may only be considered compatible if its a match between everyone. It’s almost like trying to find a dating match not only with the person but with their family members too (no pressure, of course).

Wireframes

After sketching out a few ideas I created a series of wireframe mockups for the Home page of the mobile app. Upon initial inspection of my first wireframes the design didn’t create that much of a punch. The design didn’t help me feel like I wanted to pull the trigger. To create a stronger impact I used only one dog image at the top as a single connection point. The Home page menu focuses more on the primary goal- finding dogs, while the secondary goals are placed in the slider menu.

Wireframe of the initial Matchdog home page

Wireframe of the initial Matchdog menu

Prototype

For the prototype I needed to make changes to the wireframe to strengthen the user’s sense of ease and trust. Firstly, I had to change the way the app communicated with the user by creating a more relatable voice. The tone is from a 1st person’s point of view from your future dog that you have yet to meet: “Find me. I’m out there, you just have to look.” Secondly, I had to include content to add to the sense of trust that was lacking. Therefore, the service’s successes needed to be showcased, done so through a rotating banner at the bottom. Lastly I was able to enhance the easy and enjoyability factor by simplifying selections and adding different interaction types and filter methods: drag and drop, slider function, Lightbox effect.