.svg)
Dog owners need a reliable and safe method to track their dogs so they can feel confident of their dog's safety.
Our app focuses on the safety of the dog and provides tools for the owner in the event of an emergency.
1. Research
Domain Research, Competitive Analysis
2. Define
Problem Statement
3. Ideate
Group Brainstorming, User Flow, App Map
4. Prototype
Mid-fidelity Wireframes, Hi-fidelity Prototype
This project was for the 2-day UX Result Design Hackathon
Bark is a smart dog collar that enable owners to track the real-time location and activity of their dogs. Owners can use Bluetooth to easily connect to the collar and set up their account via a native app on their phone.
Design the onboarding process for the Bark app, including connecting the dog collar to the phone. Teams may design the home screen and any other important features as well.
With a limited time, we had to work quickly without disregarding researching and empathizing with the users. First we collected data about pet ownership and lost pets.
Over 50% of American households own a dog, with 15% of dog owners having lost their dogs in the past 5 years.
Chances of finding a lost dog within the first 24 hours is 90%, after that chances decrease to about 55-65%, and continues decreasing as time goes on.
Although statistically few dogs go missing each year, it is incredibly important to locate them quickly.
The top smart dog collars on the market now are used for tracking, training, and monitoring. Our design challenge focuses on tracking
Users were mostly frustrated by the poor performance of the GPS tracking devices. We also found the competitors lacked emergency situation features.
Dog owners view their dogs as part of their family and "man's best friend." This connection makes it that much more important for users to know the location of their dogs as a safety and preventative measure.
We found the current offerings failed to offer dog owners the peace of mind they look for in a smart dog tracking collar.
Dog owners need a reliable and safe method to keep track of their dogs, so that they can feel confident that their dog is and will be safe even in an emergency.
Collaborative ideation in Miro
Mapping out onboarding
In addition to the onboarding process, we wanted to build out the home page and important features of the app. We made an app map to establish where users will find what features, and to help guide us in prototyping.
App map
To maximize our efficiency, we created mid-fidelity wireframes while one of us worked on branding.
Onboarding: Create Profile
Home and emergency screen
Because Bark is a product for dogs, we wanted the brand colors to appeal to dogs as well. While most humans can perceive the full color spectrum, dogs actually see yellow and blue the best.
Blue also invokes a feeling of trust and safety, which is how we want users to feel when using Bark. Yellow on the other hand, can give a sense of alertness and urgency necessary when dealing with emergencies.
Human vs. dog color spectrum (Source: American Kennel Club)
Trustworthy, Safe
Alert, Urgent
Based on quick feedback, we added more explanations for some onboarding steps and took out some non-essential steps. We also added a couple of tooltips when the user first lands on the home screen to highlight where to find features not discussed in the onboarding screens.
Splashscreen mockup
When users first open the app, they'll be prompted to pair the collar to their phone. Users will be guided by the animated drawings of the collar.
After pairing, users can create their account. We made this as few steps as possible while still asking for enough information for the app to work without the user needing to edit or add information.
Create Account
Email + Password
Dog Profile
Dog Photo
(Optional)
Health Records
(Optional)
Human Profile
Set Emergency Procedure
Notifications
(Optional)
Voice Feature
Voice Type
(Optional)
Features that weren't addressed in the onboarding screens will be pointed out on the home page.
The highlight of our app concept is the emergency feature, which aids dog owners if their dog has gone missing or if they're injured. The app will help the user go through the proper steps to ensure their dog's safety.
Although we were asked to design the onboarding process, we considered what features would be included in the app. We proposed adding these as next steps:
The ability to give other humans related to the dog limited access to the app (e.g. dog walkers, dog sitters)
More features for the physical collar like a light, clicking, or vibrating capabilities.
Overall I believe we did a lot with the amount of time we had, but there were many things I learned from and would do differently next time.
Designing the onboarding process for a complex product requires prioritizing the most pertinent features. I think this would have been easier if we were able to conduct card-sorting or a survey with users. Even if we didn't have enough time to gather proper feedback, I think we could have thought of more ways to make the onboarding process smoother and quicker on our own, instead of focusing on building the prototype.
Obviously most of our difficulties came from our limited amount of time. Next time I would want to lay out a plan with specific goals for each step. Then each step would be time-boxed so that we don't spend too much time on one thing.