Spark
Strategic Design, UI Design, Art Direction, Illustration, Social Design
Topic
Pets Abandonement
Every year in France, more than 100,000 pets are abandoned by their owners. These abandonments are caused by the ease of adopting a pet and the futile reasons that push people to welcome a new companion into their home. So how might we raise awareness among France’s adoption process to reinforce pets security?
Research Overview
Desk Research
This is the first step of the research phase. The aim is to do prior learning about the web by reading books or watching documentaries.
Expert/User Interviews
Expert and user interviews are helpful to get specific education and insights from users and professionals with precise answers to specific questions that matter qualitatively.
Cultural Probes
Using probes during the initial stages of a new project can help generate design solutions that answer user’s needs. It is a powerful tool to uncover the culture and human interaction like emotions, values, connections, and trust.
Speculative Design
Speculative design, sometimes called critical design, is a way of speculating about possible futures. It concerns user-centered design and asks what effect our design today could be on future societies. It looks at possibilities and not probabilities and pushes us to consider our preferences over a set of potential futures. It also looks at how the things we design help or hinder our tentativeness from building those futures.
Quantitative Survey
Quantitative research quantifies behaviors, opinions, attitudes, and other variables and generalizes a larger population. The goal of quantitative research is to understand the relationship between an independent and dependent variable in a population. This can bring excellent insights for the research phase.
Stakeholders Map
It is a visual process of laying out different project stakeholders on one map to visualize and locate interest groups. It does give an excellent visual representation of all the entities that influence the topic and how they are related to each other.
Findings
Insights
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Main reasons thats lead to abandonment are adopting on a whim, a lack of compatibility, the pressure from relatives and the size of pets.
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Choosing the wrong pet can lead to strong behavioral problems.
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Many pet owners have felt the need of support for the education of their pet.
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People usually adopt around their home.
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In most of the shelters, a person is in charge of doing the best pet-owner couples and to create online profiles of their animals to get more visibility.
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Marketing has a strong influence on pets’ adoption.
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Big majority of people expressed during the research that it should have more restrictions regarding pet adoption, like in Belgium or Switzerland.
Opportunity Fields
Compatibility
Education
Responsibility
Perception
After the research and analysis phase and the findings highlighted in the frameworks, I reframed the initial problematic into this challenge for the next project stage: How might we provide qualified guidance all along the adoption process to help future adopters adopt responsibly?
Concept
Principle
Spark is a compatibility-based dating app that allows potential adopters and animals from nearby shelters to for compatible pairs to ensure a good match in the future. The app is divided in two interfaces adapted to the need of each stakeholder: one for future adopters, to find their best mate, and one for the shelters, to offer the best owners to their animals.
Target
First, responsible pet owners who wants to adopt a pet that fits their lifestyle and needs in their neighborhood. Second, shelters who want to have more visibility to free up space and welcome more abandoned animals, and save time with the centralization of all communications with potential adoptants with an ergonomic interface. Finally, for the animals who deserve to find a loving family after a traumatic experience like abandonement or abuse.
Added Value
Spark focuses on both parties's needs, the needs of animals are central and the app educates on the specific ones of each animal. It forms accurate matches with a rich database, it's less stressful for the adoptants and a time saver for shelters. Spark is also a facilitator for adoptants.
Implementation
Expert Feedback
In order to iterate my prototype, I got in touch with on of the previous expert (breeder) I interviewed in the research phase. Here are the main insights she gave me after she tested the app:
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Very positive feedback on the application
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"It really stands out from any other similar concepts I’ve ever seen, with his precision and its accurate matches"
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Recommendation of a market study with the shelters
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Many tips to improve some of the features to implement the app in real life.
Communication
In order to make the application known, it is necessary to develop a strong communication plan adapted to the audience you want to reach. Spark is not known to anyone, and the objective is to build its brand image. During the prototype part, the brand personality stood out as ‘heroic.’ Looking at the subject of my thesis and the problem that the application is supposed to solve, it may be essential to show that Spark is a dedicated and committed brand through its communication.
Mediums
Poster Campaign
Street Marketing
Social Networks
Digital Marketing
Partnership
Starter Pack
Download the full thesis document here.