Tools
Team
Methods
Mentor
Linh
Figma
Christine Tran, Harshini Kandagaddala
User interviews, Usablity Testing, Surveys, Questionaire
Developed a feature called routes to address the challenges of user engagement, a lack of motivation for the app and improving your pet's fitness
2024
16 weeks
Biscuit Beacon
Placed 2nd out of 100 teams in the Modak Maker Studio Competition.
Had also won 3.5K in funding at the same competition.
Achievements
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Overview
What is Biscuit Beacon?
Biscuit Beacon is an app to maximize the enjoyment dog owners receive out of their everyday walks - built and maintained by dog lovers from around the world.
Here's me running through the app :)
Treat Jar
Some beacons include:
Treat Jar
Water Bowl
Waste Bin
Context
What's unique about it?
What's unique about it?
You and your pet friend will come across beacons that will be placed by other users. It’s a fun and interactive way to make your daily walks more exciting for both you and your dog!
01/ Discover
02/ Define
03/ Develop
04/ Deliver
The Process
I decided to use the double-diamond process to explain my design thinking.
Since we didn't have much research prior to joining session 4, we immediately began our research process
To understand the problem, we began to conduct some observations about the app to dive in deeper on the root cause.
We began to dive deeper by using different research activities
We received about twenty responses on how they felt about the app and what they would like to see with the given options
Insights
From the surveys we noticed a lot of users lacked motivation or were bored during dog walks
Users want a way to track the distance and time of the walks
Users want to gain rewards by completing challenges, reaching milestones, and watching ads
We created a survey for people to get an idea of what people thought of the app.
Survey/Questionaire
Initial Observations
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Observations
Our problem is that Biscuit Beacon is struggling to engage users effectively
Without compelling features or incentives, users are not finding enough value in the platform to incorporate it into their daily routines.
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This is resulting in low motivation to use the app.
Problem
This feature is designed to enhance user engagement by encouraging pet owners to not only track their pets' activity but also bring in excitement by exploring new routes and trails.
This will be a way to track your pet's overall health with how far they need to travel, the time it takes, and what is needed to improve their overall fitness.
We wanted to design a feature that can enable users to create routes and track their distance with a stopwatch.
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Solution
Interview
I decided to interview my friend as he's had his dog for three years and tries to take different routes in Austin.
Krish Parmar
Age
21
Education
Sophomore
Occupation
Student
Location
Austin, TX
TEch literate
High
I love exploring and making adventures with my dog.
Personality
Thinker
Tech-savy
Bio
Krish lives in Austin and has a three year old German Shepard. Krish wants to use an app where he can track his dog’s distance and explore different routes.
Core needs
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Connect with users, share trails, and discover popular routes.
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Get live progress, weather updates, and hazard alerts for safe walks.
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Track routes with GPS and easily share them with others.
Frustrations
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Frequent glitches or inaccuracies in route tracking make it hard to monitor progress or distance accurately.
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Other apps fail to provide engaging tools
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Confusing navigation, slow loading times, and poorly designed interfaces from other apps.
Platform
Mobile App
"I would use this product to find parks nearby. Find a place that isn’t overpopulated. I like the concept of the app as people are there and care about their pets."
"I would love to have a feature where users can share their routes so I can see the different adventures I can take."
" I want to explore different places for my dog. Pictures of dogs playing would entice me."
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Insights
Nike Run App
Our Competitors
Once we did our intital research, we conducted competitive analysis to get inspiration on what other apps are doing.
The Nike Run app was a big inspiration for us especially with the countdown, the distance and time page, and the summary page showing your mile time and heart rate throughout the run. This will allow you to see how your dog is responding to certain distances and keep tracking of overall walking health.
Sketches
We began to ideate our sketches on how we wanted the routes feature and how we wanted to track distance and time.
Final Product
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Routes
We added a drop pin feature for users to select where they want the route.
In addition to the countdown, we added a stopwatch at the bottom to track your distance and time.
We added notifications for nearby beacons and distance milestones.
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Distance/Time Tracker
We added the distance, timer, and stopwatch at the bottom
You can still access the map to collect your beacons while tracking everything
You can pause and stop your walk anytime if you need a break.
My Time
I had an incredible team to support and help me throughout this internship.
It was a fantastic experience working with this team.
Reflection
Biscuit Beacon taught me a lot on what it takes to be a team player and be a helping hand to my teammates.
I learned a lot of from Linh and she taught me so much to be a better designer
The Full Design Process🧑🏽💻
If you're curious about the detailed research and design process behind this project, feel free to reach out to me!
Next Steps
We want to implement a community feature to message your friends and fellow woofers on a walk. Potentially adding new beacons on walks to make it more fun for users. Another idea would be to market the company better through Tiktok and Instagram to spread the word and show why it's unique
Enliven
