Fetchr

Approximately 47% of re-homed dogs were done so citing "problematic behaviors," which could be caused in part by a lack of the owners’ prior knowledge/experience in canine breed behaviors and training. Additionally, this focus on a dog’s readily observable aesthetics has ultimately resulted in the emergence of a related problem — overrepresentation of less "popular" breeds within shelters, further perpetuating the stigma of these particular breeds as being "un-adoptable."

Due to the relatively broad scope of this issue, it was necessary to limit the the geographical parameters of research in order to better investigate the specific nuances of the problem at hand. Thus, the city of Baltimore was chosen specifically due to its particular history and legislation regarding dogfighting and pit bulls, one of the most stigmatized types of dogs currently.

Sketches

Storyboarding

A preliminary competitive analysis of four dog adoption tools found that in 3 of the 4 services, dog profiles were all presented initially with photographs, but very little additional information. Additionally any info presented did not appear to be standardized — some adoptees had extensive profile write-ups while others were missing profiles entirely.

After analyzing my findings, I created a paper prototype to test my application quickly and identify any flaws in the design and/or user flow itself. Users were tasked with both observing a demonstration of the paper prototype's usage as well as interacting with it themselves. They were then interviewed about the process.

Findings

1. In general, it seemed that users valued visual elements that would allow them to make more informed decisions — for example, knowing how many potential matches fit according to their questionnaire responses gave users a good idea of how each response directly impacted their results.
2. Users did not see much value in the match percentage feature. There were questions raised as to how each response factored into the final calculation, as well as general confusion over "how much" percentage discrepancies mattered. Overall, they found the metric itself to be too arbitrary and vague to be helpful.
3. Lastly, users expressed general apprehension while going through the questionnaire. Some assumed that the answers provided were irreversible (and therefore a user would have to re-take the entire questionnaire if they wanted to later update their preferences). Others were worried that their lack of experience and knowledge would lead them to choose a response that would ultimately not be an accurate representation of what they wanted. With all of these concerns, it seemed many users wanted a way to easily modify their questionnaire responses.

I realized that could look to finding #1 to address the issues brought up in findings #2 and #3 and provide solutions that would leverage an aspect of the design that users had already found valuable.

Match Visualization

The biggest challenge in this regard was to find a way to show users how a percentage match translated to a breakdown of their own preferences. Ultimately, I opted to add a radar chart to the dogs' detailed profile pages, as all of the questions presented to the user could be sorted into one of five categories – size, energy, trainability, shedding, and barking.

By observing the overlap in the diagram, users can view their own preferences at a glance, as well as exactly which criteria they most closely align with (or not) with each dog.

Updating Questionnaire Responses

I wanted to offer an easy but thorough way for users to change any answers they gave in the questionnaire. This meant that they would never be required re-take the questionnaire in its entirety, as users had indicated during the user testing phase that although the questionnaire was thorough, they also found it to be somewhat long and requiring some effort to complete.

I decided to add a detailed preferences submenu in the match results screen to allow users to both view and update their saved questionnaire responses.

A prototype was created using Figma and its key interactions and features were presented to a collection of my peers.