Wagwell

More than just man’s best friend.

The mobile app and tracking device designed to encourage daily walks for you and your furry friend.

SUMMARY

Wagwell is an application that utilizes numeric data from your fitness watch and Wagwell dog tag and transforms it into a visually engaging progress narrative. Our aim is to foster motivation and cultivate a lasting, healthy habit of walking for you and your furry friend.

MY CONTRIBUTION

Much of the work was done as a team, however I developed the "Live Stats" tab in the navigation menu, allowing access to user’s quantitative statistics for themselves, their dogs, and their walk history. I also created the illustrations for the visual progress narrative.

Problem

Solution

Research shows sedentary lifestyles contribute to health risks such as heart disease and obesity. Despite the well-documented mental and physical benefits of regular dog walking for both dogs and humans, only 40% of dog owners regularly engage in this activity. Standard health apps are based on quantitative data which can be overwhelming, resulting in demotivation and a negative mindset surrounding activity.

Wagwell is a dog walking fitness app designed to increase the frequency of walks for both you and your dog. It is a smartphone application that seamlessly syncs with a smart dog tag and fitness watch. Wagwell generates personalized walking plans and uses your quantitative statistics to visually track your progress through an illustrated narrative, offering an engaging alternative to standard numeric data systems. As you complete your walks, watch Spot move along his adventure on a skateboard.

Design Process

Secondary Research
Task Analysis
Storyboard
Technology
User Flow Diagram
Sketches
Wireframes V1
Evaluation
Wirrame V2
Moodboard
Hi-Fi Prototype V1
Heuristic Evaluation
Hi-Fi Prototype V2

Discover

Define

Secondary Research: To learn more about fitness apps targeting dog owners, we researched our competitors Whistle and FitBark. These options measure dog health statistics such as activity, rest, licking, scratching, and connect users to veterinary help. Despite these offerings, the focus is qualitative data, prioritizing health monitoring and location tracking over fitness.

For our approach, we looked at the Stanford study WhoIsZuki. This ambient narrative-based application seeks an alternative to quantitative, dashboard-based systems for goal-setting and activity tracking. The study found people relate to stories, finding more interest and motivation through this method as opposed to the overwhelming, qualitative presented data.

Task Analysis: With this research in mind, we created a task analysis for our target user, identifying what their process would currently look like to achieve their desired goal.

Storyboard:

We visually depicted the above tasks into illustrations to show the process of a user trying to achieve their goals. In the storyboard, Sadie recognizes a need to increase activity for her and her dog. She initiates her plan and sees early success, but over time deviates from her plan, ultimately not achieving the goal on her own.

The scenario highlighted user pain points identifying a need for motivation, inspiring us to create a design that fosters a habit beneficial for both the owner and their dog.

Technology:

To address the challenge of encouraging regular walks between dogs and owners, our system syncs any fitness watch and a Wagwell smart dog tag device to a mobile application. The devices measure physical data and live location that is shared with the app. This gives users the option to access to their quantitative data, walk summaries, and live tracking of their dog 24/7 within the Wagwell app.

How it works: The devices use an accelerometer to track activity and calories and a gyroscope for rotation, orientation and navigation. GPS and satellite technology allow tracking of the dog tag even away from wi-fi.

User Flow: Through several iterations, we designed the ideal steps users would follow to complete common tasks in the Wagwell app. The flow explores options for both existing and new users. To start, users sign in or create an account. Completion of either sends you to the home page, displaying the narrative progress. From here, users can navigate to the plan tab (either to view their plan or make one), live stats tab (to view quantitative data), or friends tab (later becoming the profile tab). This diagram helped identify missing elements in onboarding such as a privacy statement and tutorial that would be commonly seen in other apps.

Sketches: Following the completion of the user flow, we created sketches to visually depict the different elements we wanted to include in our app interface.

Onboarding

Plan

Onboarding

Record a Walk

Home

Progress Narrative

Plan

Live Stats

Tutorial

Live Stats

Ideate

Lo-Fi Prototype & Test

Wireframes: We iteratively developed the wireframes.

Evaluation: The initial version of the wireframes were evaluated by nine peer UX Designers. Each evaluator received an overview of the problem statement, proposed solution, user flow diagram, and wireframes to help understand context.

Concerns were raised for weight loss being the primary motivator for users to create a plan. Evaluators also indicated confusion surrounding how the live statistics were presented and conveyed in the progress chart. Lastly, many responses expressed confusion of the selected icons in the navigation bar. These comments were helpful in revising our wireframes as pictured below.

Live Stats

Plan

Connect

Profile

Connect Device

Hi-Fi Prototype & Test

Interactive Prototype: The wireframes were then further developed into an interactive prototype.

Heuristic Evaluation: A new set of three peer UX designers conducted a heuristic evaluation of the first version of our hi-fi prototype.

From the evaluation, we received several comments regarding consistency of aesthetics such as the “start walk” button and type alignment. There were also issues with visibility of system status such as buttons while logging a walk, or feedback while connecting devices. We were also missing a tutorial to explain the app following sign up. Those changes were all implemented and examples are pictured below.

View Prototype

Landing Page

Finally, we developed a landing page to promote our system.

Conclusion & Reflection

UX/UI Design for Ubiquitous Systems: Designing a ubiquitous system from scratch has taught me the value of understanding different devices and how the technology works. Communicating with users how their device works, and why we are using their data is key for gaining trust from your users. This includes clear communication about data and privacy. Additionally, I have learned the importance of feedback and evaluations during the design process. Hearing an outside perspective is key for understanding areas of confusion for an outside users.

Figma: Working in Figma has taught me the value of tools such as design styles and auto layout for maintaining consistency throughout your design. Creating components and variants of components is a useful tool for elevating a prototype. While I did use these features to an extent, it is an area I could learn more about and improve upon.

ChatGPT: ChatGPT is a valuable resource in many stages of design. It assisted us during brainstorming in early stages of the project, as well as provide an outline for a user flow diagram. It is also a great tool for phrasing and writing copy, such as for the landing page.

Teamwork: Working on a team is great for generating ideas and brainstorming. Having multiple viewpoints can be very valuable in design, especially for UX/UI. This project has taught me the importance of communication when working away from your team. You have to find a way to effectively communicate what you’ve done and what’s next when working at different times from the team.