Design Sprint Challenge

Over the course of 5 days I embarked on my first solo design sprint that provided a lot of lessons I can build upon as an emerging designer.

The challenge was to run a design sprint for CityPups, a new startup that wants to help people living in cities find the perfect dog to adopt.

Through research and interviews, CityPups has discovered that people living in cities struggle to find the right dog to adopt due to their unique needs such as: living spaces, schedule and transport, outdoor space, etc.

It was my job to run a design sprint to quickly test out a possible solution focusing on helping users find the right dog to adopt.

I split the design sprint process into five days;

Design Constraints -

1. The solution should be designed as a website

2. CityPups aggregates adoption dogs from local organizations and shelters. Once a user decides to adopt, they get sent to a third-party contact to start the process.

Day 1 — Map

To start off Day 1, I asked myself “What should the user experience look like?” To efficiently brainstorm I started to sketch out possible end-to-end experiences while keeping two things in mind:

-Focus on helping users find the right dog to adopt

-CityPups needs to send the user to a third party to start the adoption process

After giving myself 30 minutes to draft out a few possible end-to-end experiences, I narrowed it down to three possible options I felt could possibly be best.

With the assumption that CityPups users are unsatisfied with the process of finding a dog to adopt on other sites, I wanted to create a more transparent experience that allows users to find dogs that fit their specific needs.

Day 2 — Sketch

To start off day two of my design sprint, I took some time to research some of CityPups’ competitions.

Petfinder

Petfinder is a popular website to help people find the right dog to adopt. It is also one of the first results on Google when searching for “adopt a dog.”

The first thing I noticed was that its homepage was fairly simple. However, I was surprised because despite the simplicity, I was still confused where to find available dogs. The homepage focused on making adoption education easy to find, rather than the act of adopting. I felt like this was a miss because my primary action as a user was to browse available dogs.

The tools Petfinder uses are minimal and straightforward. When thinking about CityPup users, it was very apparent that this style wouldn’t fit their needs because of how general it is. In previous surveys conducted by CityPups, their userbase mentioned that they would prefer more detailed information like dietary restrictions, energy levels, and how much space the dog would need readily available.

The interface of the website feels fun and friendly, but over time the experience feels daunting and overwhelming because there is such a long list of dogs to choose from. Plus, there is also the manual labor of checking every dog’s profile to see if they fit my needs.

Adopt a Pet:

Compared to Petfinder, Adopt a Pet’s homepage provides a clearer path for users. There are clear ways to find education resources along with available dogs easily discoverable in the top navigation.

The actual experience of finding a dog is somewhat similar to Petfinder. Some features stick out to me, such as how the “remove all filters” bar is the first thing users see when they enter their specifications. As a user, I would feel that the filters I took the time to input are being undervalued because the website wants me to remove the filters immediately.

After analyzing some of CityPups competitors and finding some key ideas I was inspired by, it was time to start on my crazy 8.

Crazy 8

My attempt at a Crazy 8 went unexpectedly bad. Going into the exercise I was super confident in myself that I would finish the entire 8 panels in 8 minutes.

Oh boy was I wrong.

When the timer went off I was surprised to see I only reached my fourth panel. Looking back, I could see how I took too much time trying to write out details of the interface and making it as clear as possible. Reviewing the photos you can even see the quality dip as time goes on.

With that being said, it was my first time and I believe the exercise was very beneficial to my creative development process.

Solution Panel

My initial solution panel focused on both how I intended to create a website that allows CityPups’ users to edit their specific needs for a dog and how to streamline their search.

The first panel I constructed was a series of drop-down filters that users could choose from. These would act as “tags” for CityPups’s algorithm to filter.

Then once results are filtered, the best matches will be displayed in a single photo carousel…

a single photo carousel (Tinder-esque) with dogs that fit the specific tags that the user entered.

Finally, the third panel represents once a user clicks the heart once they clicked the heart button signifying they are interested in the dog. That dog’s name appears in the saved bar on the left-hand side.

Day 3 — Decide

I decided I would proceed with designing the CityPups adoption experience with heavy inspiration not from Tinder, rather than other adoption sites.

I came up with this idea because of the Crazy 8 exercise I completed the day before. It started off as a weird idea but as I thought about it more, I thought, “If people go on apps like tinder to find a lifelong partner, wouldn’t that also apply to dogs?” Although Tinder is a native app, they also have a web version that people use as well. Since for this project I am constricted to designing for web, I will be taking inspiration from the web version of Tinder.

After signing up for Tinder, you are thrown into the main website. It is pretty bare bones and focuses on the people as they are the content. I love this choice as it puts the primary focus on one individual. It keeps the user wondering “Is this person the right one for me?”

I wanted to take inspiration from this message screen and apply it to the new CityPups design where the user must contact a third party in order to start getting serious about adopting the dog.

Storyboard

My initial storyboard consisted of five different slides. These slides highlight the critical moments in the experience that highlight the main focus of the challenge.

The first moment is the page where the user would enter in their specific needs for the dog they want to adopt.

The second page is the main page most users would spend their time on, as they will be cycling through a single photo carousel which brings up specific dogs that fit their needs.

The third page is an extension of the second representing a confirmation pop up when the call button in the middle is pressed.

The fourth page is my design of the messages screen.

Finally I intended the fifth page to be a confirmation notification screen showing the user that the third party representative has accepted the user to adopt the requested dog.

Day 4 — Prototype

The prototype is a rough outline of how the experience of finding a dog to adopt on CityPups would feel like.

At first, I was going to use my sketches to build the prototype, but I thought it was much easier to create some quick wireframes on Figma. I added a few more slides in addition to my sketches in order to expand the experience of my critical route. By doing this I was able to clarify my designs and ended up changing a few screens to ease the user’s experience.

Day 5 — Test

The fifth day consisted of five rounds of interviews using the five act method.

When going through the interview process, I set aside about 30 minutes for each person to have enough time with the prototype. All interviews were conducted over video chat and I sent each participant the link while I read out the tasks.

When starting the friendly welcome, I made sure to remind the participants that the prototype is still in its rough stage and does not reflect the experience as a whole for CityPups.

With that being said I am only using this test to ask questions about the user experience for the critical routes that most users would experience.

It should also be noted that I have never interviewed these people before and they have never been part of an experiment of this nature.

That being said, the experience of testing went fairly smoothly and I had great conversations with each of the participants. Most of the participants thought the actual use of the prototype was easy to understand and very straightforward.

This was expected on my end so I prepared questions that fished for critiques about the user experience.

Steven had the most trouble when trying to understand the functions of the main page (friend finder). When I asked him about it, he said he is unfamiliar with the website format. This made me realize how important a tutorial page is for users. The first time a user goes through this experience there should be guided text and spotlight indicators to help users successfully navigate through the website.

Another piece of helpful feedback was when Owen asked, “Is there a way I could cycle through the dogs using the keyboard? It’s kinda awkward using a mouse the whole time.” After hearing that I thought I should also add keyboard instructions in an expanded tutorial so that users know they could use a keyboard if they wanted to.

Lessons Learned

• Design Sprints are stressful alone. This experience made me realize that I am so excited to see what working in a team could feel like. Honestly, it is very challenging attempting a challenge like this alone with no other creative minds to bounce ideas off of. With a team I feel like I would learn faster and more efficiently.

• Don’t get attached to an idea. Another lesson I learned from this sprint was to not get attached to an idea. Over the first few days I was sure I was going to make another website that looked similar to CityPups competitors, but I ended up going with a dating app as my main source of inspiration! By doing this I felt that I created a more unique experience that wouldn’t have been possible if I followed through with the original plan.

I’m always striving to improve my UX/UI skills so feel free to leave a comment on what I can improve on!