Rover Redesign
An information architecture project centered around a new GPS tracking system for Rover.
How might we increase trust and safety between pet sitters and pet owners?
♦ Conducted two in-depth user interviews, one with a pet owner and one with a pet walker
♦ Developed a user Proto-Persona based on our exploratory research
♦ Created a class diagram and a use case diagram to explore how a GPS tracking feature would fit into Rover's current ecosystem
During the ideation phase of the project, I conducted two user interviews to help build a new persona and to inform the design. I needed to understand if this feature was going to be valuable to pet owners and if pet sitters would even accept their location being tracked.
1. Pet Owner Interview
2. Pet Sitter Interview
Israel collected user stories in the form of online reviews on Rover, Wag!, and Reddit. He also researched the design systems of Rover's biggest competitor Wag! and compared that to features offered on Rover's platform. The biggest pain point we found was that there was an evident lack of trust between pet owners and pet sitters.
Rover is built off the sharing economy. With a GPS tracking system in place, it will foster a community-driven approach to pet care, thereby easing some of the worries of pet owners.
Assumptions
♦ There is at least one dog sitter and one dog owner on the platform
♦ Only the dog sitter gets their GPS tracked
♦ Both dog sitter and dog owner leave a review. One transaction has taken place. Each dog sitter leaves a review for the dog owner, and each dog owner leaves a review for the dog sitter
Rules of the System
♦ A dog sitter can sit 0 to many dogs.
♦ A dog owner can have 0 to many dog sitters.
♦ A dog sitter and dog owner are types of users.A dog sitter must turn on GPS tracking when taking a dog on a walk.
♦ The administrator monitors reviews, approves user accounts, and reports abuse.
♦ After a transaction has taken place, the dog sitter and dog owner can leave a review.
Assumptions
♦ Assume a job is a 30 min walk (no considering dog boarding, house sitting, drop-in visit, or doggy day care).
Assumptions
♦ Whenever a dog sitter takes a job, they walk the dog.
♦ The dog sitter must turn on GPS tracking when they take their dog on a walk.
♦ The dog sitter and dog owner must leave a rating review but text review is optional.
♦ The dog owner and dog sitters are approved and registered with Rover.
♦ The administrator and not the database approves accounts.
We created a sequence diagram to outline how different actors communicate with each other to enable GPS tracking.
We created a state machine diagram to model the dynamic behavior of a GPS tracking system.
We decided to take a software engineering approach to solving a design challenge by thinking through the use case diagrams, sequence diagrams, etc. Engineers think in a very logical and systematic way, something I'm not used to doing! If given more time, we would love to design screens to complement our idea. This would allow us to fully realize our idea.
This was an incredibly exciting project for us. I loved being able to exercise a different approach to designing that I don't normally get to practice. Software engineers work very closely with designers, and having an understanding of how they approach design problems is extremely valuable. I was also very pleased to see that Rover actually implemented a GPS tracking features shortly after we finished this side project!