Goals
Design an app that allows people to create playdates for their dogs and feel safe at the same time.
Use Play Date as a way to create safe environments for not only the owners but their dogs.
Have owners decide the kind of dog they feel comfortable having their dog around with; due to safety/personal reasons.
Introduction
"Play Date" is an app where dog owners are able to create play dates for their dogs. It can be difficult for people to spend quality time with their dog, especially with a busy schedule. Play Date has a feature where they're able to choose a specific day and time to schedule a play date for their dog. They're also able to choose the kind of dog they want their furry friend to play with. They can have a small dog who gets anxious around big dogs, therefore, being able to choose friends is important. Not only is it safe, but it keeps the owners and dog at peace. Let's say a person has a medium sized dog who is hyper and energetic. They would want to find a dog that matches that same energy as well. This way they wouldn't feel guilty for having a hyper dog around a calm dog. "Play Date" will also avoid problems and embarrassment. For this class project, we used the 6 GDD phases such as Research, Modeling, Requirements, Framework, Refinement and Support.
Method
As said before, our team used the GDD Method, which stands for Goal-Directed Design. Alan Cooper, who created the GDD method, explains in his book "About Face" that the GDD method includes 6 phases discussed earlier (Research, Modeling, Requirements, Framework, Refinement, and Support). In the Research phase, we discussed the goals for the projects, checked our schedules for team meetings, held stakeholder interviews, and understand users' needs and behavior. In the Modeling phase, we created a primary and secondary persona. For the Requirements phase, we created context scenarios that tell stories about ideal user experiences. We also discussed how the product fits into the persona's life and environment, and how it helps them achieve their goals. In the Framework phase, we created the wireframe (this includes Key Path and Validation Scenarios which explain how the design fits into an ideal sequence of user behaviors, and accommodates a variety of likely conditions) and designed the prototype and created Key Path and Validation Scenarios which explain how the design fits into an ideal sequence of user behaviors, and accommodates a variety of likely conditions. In the Refinement phase, we brought back a few of the people whom we interviewed for the usability testing part of our prototype. This is where they use our app and give us feedback on what they liked/didn't like, and what they would take out or add.
Research Phase
In the research phase, we did the following; kickoff meeting, lit review, competitive audit, stakeholder interviews, and user interviews. This helped us understand the details, goals, stakeholder perspectives, our users and their usage of our app.
Kickoff Meeting
For the kickoff meeting, we didn't have an actual meeting considering we didn't have actual stakeholders. More so we completed a worksheet on FigJam as a team on a video call using Discord. We constructed a problem statement and multiple assumption statements about the project and its user base. This helped us dig deeper into our app. We talked about who our users would be, in this case, dog owners, dog lovers, and pet sitters. We discussed how our product should look and behave, where our product fits into their lives, how our product will be used, what problems it solves, user benefits, our primary competition, etc.
Literature Review
In this phase, we included any research we did on our product domain-current views on it, user reviews of products, any externalities that might shape the product domain, etc. In our literature review, we discussed the benefits of socializing with dogs, looking at pictures of dogs improves well-being, and social media users post about their dogs six times per week. This information helped us understand what was needed for our product. We did our research on what we thought would be helpful to include in our app.
Competitive Audit
For the competitive audit phase, we looked at apps that had the same idea as "Play Date". However, most apps didn't have the social media feature we included in our app. We found two apps called "Rover" and "Paway". Rover is one of the leading competitors for dog-based platforms. We saw that "Rover" only has one similar feature to "Play Date" which is it supports pet-sitting features. However, it doesn't have a map feature. Paway is more of a dog-walking community and a GPS app where dog owners can meet up and discover new locations. This app isn't so much of a competition, considering they have gotten complaints about their sign-up section. Therefore, with Play Date we made sure to add an easygoing sign up process. Overall, doing this research helped us understand what should/should not be implemented in our app.
Stakeholder Interviews
As stated before, we didn't have real stakeholders considering this was a class project. Therefore, my team played the role of a stakeholder. We conducted this meeting through our FigJam board where we stated a problem statement and multiple assumption statements. The assumption statements were discussed using questions that were supplied to a class for students.
User Interviews
User Interviews helped us understand what could be added or taken out of our app. We interviewed 8 people, and asked them questions relating to our app. They gave us their input on certain things, but the point was to get information from the users so we knew what to implement. Since our app is about dog play dates, we asked them if they owned or have ever owned a dog, if they train their dog, if they're interested in knowing dog-related businesses, etc. We also asked them how they felt about certain features we were going to include in our app. Overall, I think this really helped us as a team to know what was needed for our app. After we were done with all of the interviews, we identified patterns and recurring themes that were found in all 8 interviewees.
Modeling Phase
In this phase, we created primary and secondary personas using the data we gathered from the past phases. In these personas, we created them to let people know how our app would be used by different users. Our primary persona, her name is Serena Gardner. Keep in mind, these are fictional characters and used a random name generator. Our secondary persona, his name is Chris Rivera. We also included their age, occupation, major, end goals, life goals, and a narrative. Serena is someone that is in need for an app that provides playdates. She is a pet sitter who loves extroverted dogs and is interested in visiting new dog-friendly locations. Chris is an introverted dog owner who is interested in looking for hiking trails. Even though he is introverted, he feels that it is important for his dog to socialize. Therefore, our goals was to satisfy Serena's and Chris's needs without it affecting each other.
Requirements Phase
In the requirements phase, we created problem/vision statements, brainstorm, identified persona expectations, constructed a context scenario, and built a requirements list. These are all related to the personas that we created in the modeling phase. We wrote down the requirements for the primary persona, secondary persona, and both personas. Context scenarios show how the products fit into the persona's life and how it helps them achieve their goals. We only did a context scenario for our primary persona, as this was required by our professor. We wrote a 1-2 page narrative on how our primary persona would use our app in daily life.
Frameworks Phase
In the frameworks phase, we were required to create a wireframe for our project. This helped us move on to the prototyping part of the project. It was sort of like a layout of how we wanted our app to look. We didn't use color of any sort, it was just a simple black and white layout. I was in charge of the "Confirm Playdate" and "Review Playdate" aspects of it. I also did a little bit of the "Filter Search" section in the "Add a Friend" page. All of this was done over FigJam once we were done, we decided to move the project to Figma and start working on our prototype. We have 9 sections; iPhone Camera, Start Page, Home Page, Settings, Profiles, Create a Playdate, Confirm Playdate, Add Friends, and Messages. The past phases especially the requirements phase, have helped us get to the prototyping part of the project because we were able to identify what was needed for our app.
Refinement Phase
In the refinement phase, we had three of our interviewees come back for the usability testing part of our project. We asked them before when we first interviewed them if they would be willing to come back, and they agreed. Therefore, we set up a meeting with them in the school library. We had them each sit down and narrate what they were doing as they were going through our app. For example, "I'm signing up..I'm creating a profile for my dog...I see an icons section..". We gave them six tasks; sign-up for an account, set up a profile, create a playdate, edit dog and human profiles, send a message to a friend, and add a friend. After, we asked them if there was anything that they liked/disliked, or something they would change/add. The majority of the feedback was positive, the others weren't negative it was just ideas that were given. After the usability testing meeting, we went back and made a few changes that we felt were needed. We identified the patterns from each interviewee and talked about what changes we felt were valid.
Conclusion
This project was one of my favorites because we were able to experience what it would actually be like in a company. I have previously taken a prototyping class, but never really got the full experience. However, in this course, I was able to go through the process of interviewing, wireframing, prototyping, etc. The GDD method definitely made it easier for us to design the prototype, I didn't think it was actually going to be necessary. Now that we finished the project, if we hadn't gone through those phases of the GDD method, it would've made it difficult for us to get the information and research we needed for our app. Considering I'm a social person, I enjoyed working in a team. What made it more exciting is that we each had different/similar styles. If I was given another chance or more time, I'd probably interview more people outside of school. This way we have different age groups/lifestyles giving us more information. We did have issues with the prototype, the navigation bar wouldn't work and kept disappearing. Our team leader tried her best to fix it and even contacted Figma Support. Thankfully when we had to present our prototype it worked. As we were presenting, one of our classmates let us know they also had the same issue. This was kind of a relief knowing we weren't the only ones who were having trouble with the prototype. Other than that, we had no issues and went through every phase smoothly.
PlayDate App
Role:
Tools
Approach
Duration
Prototyper
UX Researcher
Figma
FigJam
Discord
Microsoft Teams
Google Docs
Goal-Directed Design (GDD)
5 Months