BARKline
A website to quickly compare and save money on dog boarding, anywhere.
My role
UX/UI Designer
Project lead
Tools used
Figma
Duration
3 weeks
Illustrator
Iconsax icons
Key responsibilities
Project management
Concept ideation
Prototyping
Competitive research
User testing
Interaction design
Process
Empathize
Competitive research
Insights
Define
App goals and
Ideal features
User process
Ideate
Sketches
Low fidelity
wireframes
Design
Developing branding
high fidelity mockup
prototyping
Test
testing prototype
User testing
Refinements from user feedback
The Challenge
Design a way for dog owners to easily compare prices and features of local or travel destination boarding.
How can we make price comparing easy for dog owners looking for boarding?
Project goals
The goals of this project focus on the users trying to find the best boarding to fit all of their needs and desires.
Goal 1: Provide an easy comparison of prices
Goal 2: Allow users to filter results depending on their needs and preferences
Goal 3: Users save money while using our site, brings traffic to site and company's
Goal 4: Allow users to request through site, instead of just a redirect link
Key insights
Based on competitive research of products with similar functions.
Insight 1:
Users enjoy being provided a discount through the product or website. Sites like Priceline offer users a discount most of the time or cheaper pricing when booking reservations through their site.
Solution: Providing users a percentage of money off their entire booking when making a reservation through BARKline. This also keeps traffic coming to both ours and the boarding website.
Insight 2:
Being that this product doesn't exist, we look at similar functions sites such as Priceline or Apartments.com, which allow in depth filtering for users searching for specific needs. I believe users enjoy these features.
Solution: Our site will encourage more in depth filtering depending on what our users need. Filters such as neutering, size of dogs, and more such preferences of runs vs. backyards, etc.
Insight 3:
Based on competitors, it seems like their users are frustrated with current
pricing listing. Whether that be inaccuracy or changing costs, users enjoy when things like availability and pricing are up to date and accurate.
Solution: Although users reservations are not guaranteed through BARKline, their requests are always sent and before that, users will be shown a confirmation screen with an predicted total. All prices
are subject to change but this confirmation includes an estimate.
Key features
After full consideration of similar purpose competitive research and feedback from their users based on their experiences with their products, some key app features were noted to include in ideation. Some of these features include maximum and in depth filters for users to cater to all their needs, discount through using the site to maintain traffic and purpose, and lastly being able to request through the website directly, instead of having to follow a redirect link and do it themselves.
User process
Once all the research was completed, insights and ideal features were established, I defined what it
would look like for users going through the searching process of the website.
Step 1
Enter location, select dates, and number of dogs. As well as a few brief filters
Step 2
From there, the users can search to find matching boarding results
Step 3
From the list shown, users select a desired business to request from
Step 4
After the user submits a request,
they will be contacted by the business to book
Ideation and development
This phase includes the early stage concept, branding, and design development. I started with sketches, then created wireframes Figma, followed by developing a branding style, which allowed me to create high fidelity mockups. From there, I prototyped my screens, bringing my design to life.
Product testing
After creating and prototyping the high fidelity mobile design, I had users briefly go through and test the design out. After feedback and reviewing of this, I proceeded to follow the same steps to create and mockup the desktop size of this website. After this was done, both were tested side by side to users. Based on a lot of positive feedback from users, especially after mobile testing, there were just some minor changes to be made amongst the entire product.
Change 1:
A note that was made was that users were curious about having more details in the description of the businesses listed. The information pulled comes from the direct company websites,
however this could be a great opportunity for the companies to work with BARKline and decide what's listed. Another note with that was a link to the company websites, which would now be found at the end of their descriptions.
Change 2:
A second change was made after reviewing of the flow of the prototypes. The users pointed out that there was a minor extra step for mobile vs desktop to get to the chat with support area of the site. This was was important to fix
because we want the experience to be
cohesive no matter how our users are
using the product.
Final thoughts
In conclusion, BARKline is a great way for users to quickly compare and save on boarding. Whether it's a travel location, or local boarding while they travel, BARKline is perfect for users of any sort. The product allows for users to completely customize their search results to their preferences and desires, allowing them to see all details before reaching out to companies. Users stated that this would be a useful product, especially since this product currently does not exist on the market. Our users believe that this product is easy to understand and straight forward. It has all the key features noted in early ideation and offers users a one of a kind experience. If I were to create this product again, I would somehow try to figure out how to allow booking an official reservation through the site as well as touch more on availability of the businesses shown. BARKline has endless opportunities.
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