Happy Tails — Evelyn Liu

See prototype here

Service provided

User Interface design for iOS / User Experience research / Prototyping / Illustrations / Design system / Style guide

Role

Lead UX/UI Designer

Gathered user insights via in person interviews, phone interviews and surveys.
User flows generated from main user insights.
Gathered and implemented user feedbacks on initial wireframes.
Create design system to maintain consistency throughout application
Prototyping using Invision Studio and Figma

Tools used

Figma / Invision Studio

Problem space

Regular exercise and human social interactions have been shown to have a positive impact on the adoption rate in dogs and cats (Source).

Animals that have more human interaction are more likely to find a new permanent home (Source).

For people who cannot own a pet for various reasons, such as religious, small space, or renting policies, the only ways to spend time with an animal is to ask their friends and family or go to public pet cafes (from 9 user interviews).

Inspired by Uber’s UberKITTENS campaign, we want to find a way for people to interact with animals while also benefiting the community.

Results

This is why we have created Happy Tails, an application that partners with local animal shelters to arrange visit sessions with shelter animals.

How it works:
1. Request for a visit to any of the listed adoptable pets.
2. Drop by your local animal shelter at the specified time
3. Play and interact animals in the adoption room.

Initial hypothesis

It all started with a problem that is dear to a lot of us. A lot of people are pet lovers, but they can’t maintain a pet of their own because of these reasons:

They live in apartments that doesn’t have a lot of space or the apartment has rules against pets
Those who lead a busy life or are always traveling don’t have the time commitment to take care of a pet
They live with someone who are allergic to pets

Current solutions

Physical

So there are a few options to take here if one wants to spend some times with a pet:

Cat cafes (There are several in Toronto), in an ideal scenario, the user would be able to enjoy the company of cats in a relaxing cafe setting. However, they are often crowded with many people (sometimes kids) trying to pet the cats. Some are criticized for mistreatment of their resident cats (source).
Friends and families with pets, but not all our friends have pets, and we don’t want to impose on them to be with us constantly/whenever we want.

Digital

Fortunately, not all hope is lost. There are pet focused apps that help connect pet lovers to pets.

The most notable two are Rover and WeRescue. We evaluate them based on the following criteria:

Competitive analysis on existing platforms

There are areas they have done well, however, both are slightly lacking in addressing our target audience here, who are non pet owners who simply want to spend time with pets. For example, while Rover offers animal interaction services such as dog walking or dog sitting, to become a dog sitter, a new user has to go through a 13 step sign up process with background checks to ensure safety on both sides. This is to ensure that the stranger walking your dog isn’t going to take your dog and just run with it. We wanted a faster turn around rate since our target user are often people who doesn’t have the space and time to maintain a pet.

We rescue has a standard 2 step sign up process, but their main focus is to serve as a listing platform for people who are looking to adopt. Our main target user are people who are looking to spend time with pets, adoption is not their first priority here.

Uber Kittens

A potential opportunity

I digged around a bit more around the internet until I came across this campaign ran by Uber a few years ago.

It was a 1 day campaign to raise money for animal shelters.

Uber users pay 30$ to request for a kitten to be delivered to their door, they then get to play with the kitten for 15 minutes.

Initial direction

A shelter animal service delivery service.

Because of that, we see an opportunity here for something long term, specifically, a shelter animal service delivery service. This solution would address the needs of our target audience, who are none pet owners wanting to spend time with a pet. Secondary outcomes of this solution are increased adoption rate of shelter pets by exposing them to more human interactions and to serve as another source of revenue for the animal shelters.

User interview and feedback round 1

methods

To test how the initial direction fair with our target user, 23 survey responses and 8 in person interviews were collected.

Potential issues

Cost of driving around. Uber had an existing pool of drivers to pull from during the campaign. They had adopted an existing method of service for another purpose. Our solution required a transportation infrastructure to be built from the ground up.
Stressed animals. Not all shelter animals are great with cars, and we do not know the long term effects of transportation on shelter animals and shelter staffs.
Paying money for shelter animals is not cool

““...sounds like pimping the cat out...” ”

— one user said during an interview

A revised direction

Instead, we visit them at the shelter

There are already existing practices called “Reading Sessions” that shelters use to facilitate human-pet interactions (source1, source2, source3, source4).

This program is installed at ASPCA and Toronto Humane Society and many other Humane Societies around the world.

Because of existing infrastructure, we see this as a good foundation here for us to build upon.