Citypup Design Sprint

Project Overview

I am conducting a 5 day design sprint to design a dog adoption website catered to people who live in the city. 

My Contributions

I worked throughout the entire phase of the product’s development cycle which includes user research, mockups, prototyping, and user testing.

Tools used: Figma

Day 1: Research

For this project, I am I am understanding how to help people who live in the city find their perfect dog to adopt. People who live in the city have a hard time adopting dogs due to unique needs such as their living spaces, busy lifestyle, transportation, energy levels, behavior, and more. 

User Flow Map

I have created a user flow map to identify the necessary steps that users must follow to discover their ideal dog.

Competitive Analysis

To begin, I conducted research on other websites that catered to pet adoption in order to gain insights on how to assist individuals in adopting pets. My primary focus was on Petfinder and Adopt a Pet as they are well-known websites that feature dogs available for adoption in one's area. Analyzing their sites proved to be advantageous since I was able to observe how they presented the information on each pet and adoption centers.

Petfinder Analysis

I chose Petfinder as a source of inspiration because it is a widely recognized platform that facilitates connections between users and pet shelters or foster homes. One feature that particularly stood out to me was its ability to search for nearby pets by allowing users to input their preferred pet type and location. Additionally, Petfinder enables users to filter their search results by distance, which is beneficial since most users prefer to adopt pets within a short distance. Furthermore, Petfinder provides several filters that users can utilize to tailor their search for the perfect dog, such as breed, age, behavior, compatibility with other pets, and more.

Key Features

  1. Search by location

  2. Search by animal type, shelters/rescues

  3. Extensive filter column to search by breed, age, size, gender, color, behavior, pet name, size, good with other pets, days on petfinder, shelter/rescue name

  4. Images of pets on search

  5. Pet Profile: images of the pet, location, characteristics, and contact info of shelter/rescue

Adopt A Pet Analysis

For my second competitive analysis, I evaluated Adopt A Pet, which sets itself apart from other adoption sites by enabling users to search for pets by location and breed directly on their website. Similar to Petfinder, Adopt A Pet also provides search filters for users to use after initiating their search, although the number of filters available is more limited. By comparing these features, it's possible to identify which features were most highly valued across both platforms, which can be helpful in determining best practices.

Key Features

  1. Search by location

  2. Search by animal type, shelters/rescues

  3. Filter column to search by distance, breed, age, color, size

  4. Images of pets on search

  5. Pet Profile provides instructions on the adoption process. This is helpful for first time pet owners.

Day 2: Sketching

I sketched 8 main screens for the CityPup website. These screens are focused on helping the user find their perfect dog easily. During the process, I decided that my screen “Let’s Learn more About Your Ideal Dog” would be my critical screen. Users are mainly concerned with finding a dog that suits their city living lifestyle. By enabling them to select filters during the onboarding process, I believe it will simplify the process of finding a suitable dog.

Critical Screens

To begin creating my Citypup storyboard, I focused on designing the main homepage. The primary goal of my users is to locate a dog in the city that meets their specific needs. To accomplish this, I started with a location input field and a radius selector for users to specify how far they want to search for dogs within their area. After the initial inputs, users move to the next screen where they are prompted with further questions about their ideal dog, aiding them in selecting the perfect match for their lifestyle.

Once the filters are chosen, the next screen displays a list of dogs that match the selected criteria. By clicking on each image, users can view additional information about the dog, including breed info, characteristics, images, videos, and contact information for adoption inquiries. Additionally, I added a feature that enables users to view a larger image of the selected dog.

Lastly, I included a favorites screen to allow users to keep track of their preferred dogs for consideration. This screen enables users to easily revisit their preferred dogs and make an informed decision when adopting.

Day 3: Storyboard

Day 4: Prototype

Day 5: User Testing

  • Homescreen

    The user mentioned about the possibility of including additional filters on the home screen, apart from the location and distance filters. They suggested that having these filters available at the initial stage could be more advantageous than having to navigate to a second screen.

  • Get To Know Your Ideal Dog

    A filter on this screen was previously titled "Good with," but a user recommended changing the label to "Gets Along With" as it would be more easily understood. ‘

  • Available Dogs

    Users liked the simplicity of this page and didn’t have much to comment about besides the fact that they would like to adjust the filters if necessary. I didn’t have a filters section on here so I added a button at the top to quickly access fitlers.

Conclusion

Throughout the process of creating CityPup, there were a few struggles I encountered. I wanted to create something unique, different, and useful when designing the dog profile listings. However, I found it was challenging to come up with something totally unique that isn’t already out there. Then I recalled, during my studies, that it’s sometimes best to use designs that people are already aware of and used to. So, I went back and reviews my competitive analysis and updated my designs so to keep it clean and simple.

It was definitely challenging to create something specifically catered for city folks only since there are so many reasons to not have a dog in the city. But, I feel that with the filter screen I created, it will help potential dog adopters to find the right dog that fits their needs.

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