Dog Shelter App Prototype Case Study
Overview
Every year, about 3.1 million dogs enter a shelter and of those dogs, only about 2 million get adopted. For this assignment, we were tasked with developing a mobile application that would help get more shelter dogs adopted. There was no outside research done for this project, but we were required to make assumptions about the user in order to create the app.
Project Stages
Design Goals
The main goal of this project was to help users find the perfect dog to adopt, as this would reduce the number of surrenders and help the shelter dogs get adopted, by onboarding. The onboarding process was to highly recommend the user take a survey that would help match them with a dog that fit their personality and lifestyle.
My Role
My partner and I both had very similar tasks when working on this project. We both were expected to work together to brainstorm the assumptions made about the user. Along with the assumptions we were to create the questions for the survey that would help onboard the users into finding their perfect pet match. After we made the survey, we created very rough sketches for what the screens were going to look like. My partner and I both made sketches, but I was tasked with creating the layouts for the home, about, adoptable dogs, and the gallery page for the app. After the roughs and sketches were created, we made the flowcharts and wireframes. And finally, we put together a low and high-fidelity prototype. Part of the design process was going through and fixing any problems or errors with the app. Both my partner and I cleaned up the low fidelity prototype and produced a final prototype.
Step 1: Idea Generation
Step 2: Roughs and Sketches of Screen Layouts
Step 3:
Flow Chart and Wireframe
Final Outcomes: Low Fidelity Prototype
Axure Link to Prototype: https://a9v28t.axshare.com
Final Outcomes: High Fidelity Prototype
Axure Link to High Fidelity Prototype: https://ml9ula.axshare.com
Key Takeaways
Some of the key takeaways for me was designing an onboarding process for the users. I felt like there is a proper way to guide users into completing certain tasks that will improve their experience on an app, without forcing them to do something. Giving the users multiple choices on how they want to navigate the app is helpful, especially when they have the ability to seek guidance from the onboarding process.
Another key takeaway from the article is when we had to make assumptions about the user and their needs. It helped put me in the headspace of what the user would be looking for in an app.