Second Year Second Project - My experience

Following on from the last post about my second year at University, I wanted to let you know about my latest completed project. This project was a 4 week project, designing a smart technology dog product within the style of a particular dog brand (not a live project). Overall, this project gave me a lot to learn from and develop my skills drastically!

At the start of the project, I had mixed emotions; there were so many avenues to explore and work within but I haven't designed with technology much before and so I was quite nervous for that element of this project. The last time we worked with technology I added technology almost as an after thought and my tutors wanted the technology to drive the design. Therefore, with this project, I really wanted to ensure that the technology was necessary and helpful to both the dog owner and the dog themselves.

To begin with, I chose a direction out of a potential 5: a product/ service to ensure dogs stay fit and healthy. In terms of persona, both of the dog and the family, I chose an energetic, young dog with a young, busy family as I saw this as a good opportunity to explore. Not only was it quite a typical family lifestyle, but it also clashed slightly, having a family with little time and a dog that needs a lot of care, meaning there was a lot of room for improvement and development in that particular area.

From that point, I began to explore the daily lives of people with dogs and interestingly found that dogs are often left home alone during the day and with many dogs in the UK being overweight, I thought that this was an ideal window of time that could be utilised to ensure dogs can exercise and play rather than, quite often, being cooped up in a crate or a small room. This project was the first time I had used a user journey map also. My first experience with a user journey map was a definite learning curve. Although I wasn't too sure of it's purpose to begin with, I quickly found that it showed me where the "pain points" were that could benefit from a new solution and these became my focal points.

Although my initial sketch work focused strictly on toys or ways of getting dogs up and running around, it quickly became obvious that having your dog running around like crazy while you are not home is not a situation most people would like as they are more than likely to come home to a destroyed home. Therefore, my focus began to shift onto the idea of how dogs can have somewhere spacious and engaging for them so that they can play safely in a set area. Following this idea, I initially wanted to avoid the idea of a crate, however, further research showed me that often dogs enjoy having a small space to call their own due to their natural survival instinct. Therefore, I decided to keep the crate but build upon it to create the play space.

My final idea for this project was a crate with expandable walls to create a play space but still give comfort and safety to dogs. The technology element of this project came into the use of noise cancelling technology and cameras. The user journey maps showed that owners are sometimes anxious when leaving their pets home alone as dogs get anxious from overstimulation. Having noise cancelling technology stops the dog from being overstimulated and scared while the cameras mean the owner can stay calm while watching their dog during the day.

The final idea was very simple and didn't use any ground breaking technology or drastically change how we look after our dogs, but it did mean that owners didn't need to worry about their dogs as much during the day or how much exercise they are getting daily.

Overall, this project was stressful... I spent 9am until 10pm 7 days a week for 2 weeks on this project with very few breaks but I enjoyed it. It was a challenge and I'm sure when I get my feedback this evening I will have plenty of areas for improvement, but I'm also confident that my hard work will be reflected in my grade! Although stressful, this project taught me a lot and helped me understand new skills and develop old skills that needed that improvement!