TheraPAW

CONNECTING DOGS WITH HUMANS FOR STRESS RELIEF

CONCEPT PROJECT

My Role: UX Researcher and UI Designer
Team: 3 UX Designers
Duration: 2 weeks
Project Status: Complete

Introduction

TheraPaw is a native app that connects the user with shelter dogs based on their location. Users can browse through dog pictures and choose a dog based on filters such as, age, breed, characteristics, etc. Users can schedule to meet and play with the dog, according to their convenience. This app would help users connect with dogs, and get to enjoy the benefits of pet therapy. It would also increase user engagement with shelter dogs thereby decreasing the workload of volunteers and workers at the shelter.

Overview

The year 2020 has left a devastating impact on millions of people across the globe. Covid-19 has negatively affected people’s mental health. About 4 in 10 adults in the US have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders.
Studies indicate that simply petting a dog can lower the stress hormone, Cortisol. It can also reduce loneliness and feelings of depression. Engaging with dogs helps with: Increase in physical activity, Providing companionship, Providing sensory stress relief.
Unfortunately not everyone can afford to get a dog. This may be either due to limitations with finances, space or time.

Challenge

We believe people need a way to manage their emotional well being by having access to dogs when they need to relieve stress.

If you don’t have the time, money, or ability to own a dog full-time, what are some of the ways people could experience the health benefits of spending time with dogs.

“How might we provide a way for people to manage their stress with the help of dogs?”

We set out to explore the problem space by defining our target audience as people who love dogs and would like to get stress relief by spending time with dogs.

Partnership

When we started identifying our problem area, we thought partnering with dog shelters would be a good place to begin. We started looking at potential shelters which would align with our principles.

We looked at ASPCA, since their mission is to

• Rescue and care for homeless pets

• Prevent cruelty of pets

• Increase adoption

• Increase volunteers would work alongside our goals of connecting more people to dogs and increase community engagement.

User Research

We interviewed participants from our network, to understand how they are dealing with stress currently and how interacting with dogs has impacted them. Our participants included both, dog owners and people who love dogs but don’t own a dog. We selected these participants because we wanted feedback from both the user groups. Our team came up with a discussion guide and questions we would ask our participants.

What our participants said:

“My dog licks my tears away when I cry.”

“I love small dogs with lots of hair.”

“My dog has saved the emotional and mental health of my children during Covid-19.”

“I enjoy playing with my friend’s dog but I don’t want to own one because of the responsibility it entails.”

Key Insights from our interviews

• People notice dogs have had an improvement in their emotional wellbeing.
• People prefer to be with dogs based on their physical and personality traits.
• Some participants got over their fear of dogs when they interacted with dogs that belonged to family/friends.
• Some of the participants cannot get a dog due to limitation with time, space, finances, etc.

Insights » Features

We looked at the insights we got from our user interviews and decided on the key features we could create to solve the problem our users are currently facing.

Persona

Based on our user research and synthesis, we created a persona, Megan who represents our target audience and gives us insight to user frustrations, goals and needs. Our persona will also help us validate our design decisions.

User Journey Map

To empathize with our users, we created a journey map of Megan, our persona, to understand how she is dealing with stress in her current situation. Journey map also helped us recognize areas for opportunities for improvement.

After creating Megan’s journey map, we got clarity about our users and their pain points and we revisited our initial problem statement and validated if we were indeed working towards solving the right problem.

“How might we provide a way for people who deal with stress, the opportunity to be with a dog they like, who are not able to handle the responsibility of owning one, in their current situation?”

MoSCoW Map

We used the MoSCoW Map to categorize our list of features and to classify our product items to get successful results, by prioritizing what was most important.

We came up with potential features we wanted to include in our Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

• MY ACCOUNT: Personalizing dog preferences in the Account Screen. Users can apply filters based on size, age, personality traits of the dog, etc..

• DOG RESULTS: Finding the youngest puppy and adding it to your Favorites. Users can save the dogs they liked in their favorite list, that way they don’t have to explore dogs every time they log in.

• SCHEDULING: Scheduling a time to meet the dog. Users have busy life, they can schedule a time to meet with a dog, based on their convenience.

Design Solutions

Our team participated in an activity called Design Studio. During this, all the team members gather together, in our case, we did this remotely, over Zoom. We sketched out screens for the three tasks we had decided upon for our MVP. Each member got a chance to display his ideas and these were critiqued by the others. After a couple of rounds of these, each team member sketched a final drawing, taking ideas from each other. This activity builds collaboration amongst the team and brings out unique ideas of all individuals involved.

Wireframes

Once our team reached unanimous decision on the layout of our Account Screen, Dog Results Screen and Scheduling Screen we designed a Mid-Fidelity Wireframe in Figma to get the look and feel of our app.

Usability Testing

We ran our first round of usability testing, with five users. We ran these tests remotely via Zoom and some were done in person.

Hi-Fidelity Mockups

With feedback from the usability testing in round one, we iterated our mobile web design layout, creating solutions to problems our users faced. We designed the product incorporating visual elements like color, typography, images, etc. and brought the prototype to a Hi-Fidelity Prototype. We then ran a second round of testing to verify if the changes we implemented in our Hi-Fi design supported the change.