PERSONAL PROJECT

Introducing clarity to a passion project.

For competitors in dog sports, entering their dog into a trial is often a difficult process; Between mailing in checks and overly-redundant forms, new and experienced participants are easily dissuaded by a series of outdated obstacles.

ROLE
Lead designer, researcher

YEAR
2023

TEAM
Myself - Strategy, research,
designing the form and home page
Lindsey - User interface design, designing the event detail page

HIGHLIGHTS
User research
High fidelity designs
Prototyping
Product Strategy
Concept to design

Conceptualizing ideas

As a newer competitor in dog sports, I remembered how difficult it was attending my first trial. I had no idea how long the trail would take, what items might be needed, where to park, the list goes on. Unfortunately, the confusion and lack of information carried over to the day of the trail. New obstacles piled onto the growing list of stressors. After driving down to the building holding the trial, locating an official assisting with the event proved difficult. These events become quickly packed with people, all of which are running around the grounds. Most are participants managing their dogs in a crowd of strangers. The others are the officials managing all the participants like myself. Pulling aside anyone who looked busy made me feel like a bother during an already stressful day that was supposed to be fun. After completing my first trial, the process had not become any clearer to me. This experience is what prompted the idea to make an app.

My goal in designing this app was to place a focus on individuals new to the trial event-space. The features within the app would not only help promote a more pleasant experience for newcomers, but continue to support more experienced trial-goers. Taking these concepts into consideration, I decided the app would have four main pages.

  • Home page - to read about different sports.

  • A training page - to find classes, trainers, and clubs to train with.

  • A trial page - to find local trials to register for.

  • A profile page - to keep track of your dogs, settings, and other personal items.

I wrote down a rough list of potential features that could exist throughout the app without concerning myself with where they should be organized at this step.

After I felt comfortable that I had an idea of what I wanted in the app, I wanted to confirm that my personal pain points were shared with other competitors. I sent out a survey with 65 responses that was a mixture of demographic, contextual / psychographic and deep dive questions. The questions were as follows:

  • How old are you?

  • What gender do you identify as?

  • How many dogs do you have?

  • How many years of experience do you have in dog sports?

  • What got you into dog sports?

  • Are you interested in sports or conformation?

  • How many dog sports do you compete in?

  • What would you say is the most difficult part of starting a dog sport?

  • What is the most difficult part about trialing?

After receiving the survey results, my analysis of the data provided two key insights; First, it made me realize how fast I was moving and how I felt like I didn’t have a specific idea of what problem I was trying to solve and who I was solving it for. I found myself falling into a trap of wanting to solve everything for everyone. Second, it made me realize how many of the pain points were earlier in the competitor’s journey than I had originally anticipated. I had thought that the majority of the frustration came when the competitors were at the trial. Obstacles such as running order and locations of food and parking were more likely to be encountered before the competitor left for the event. After these findings I realized additional research needed to be conducted.

Finding clarity

For next steps, I collaborated with a design colleague. I placed a heavy focus on research and strategy while she focused on gaining additional visual design experience. Together we created a chart which helped us visualize the user’s journey. We simulated a journey for a newer competitor and an experienced competitor. During this exercise we realized a couple points which we felt were important.

  1. We found there was overlap between the new and experienced competitors.

  2. The transition from a newer competitor to an experienced competitor was a smoother transition than previously expected.

Because of these discoveries we identified that trial entry was the primary point where we could provide the most value.

Our next step was to shift our focus to improving the trial sign-up experience for agility. Agility is a well-known sport that has a large community in the state of Utah, with frequent trials. This made for a great opportunity to show my partner the trial environment which helped her empathize with the user’s struggles.

Qualitative responses indicate that one of the biggest barriers to entry for competitors are mail in forms and checks. One must print, fill out, and mail the trail form with a check included for payment to the trial secretary. This was a difficult step for newer competitors as many didn’t own a printer or a checkbook. Re-writing forms multiple times with the same information was tedious and some competitors were worried if their mail would arrive to the right place prior to entries closing.

Simply converting this process to digital all but solves the majority of frustration when it came to the process. And while we could stop there, we believed additional pain points could also be resolved to ensure a better experience. Our earlier survey data showcased that the most frustrating part about trialing was the prep ahead of time; Knowing who to talk to, how to sign up for a trial, location of trial, price, but our data lacked information regarding the entry form itself and how it may be affecting the competitor’s experience.

We printed out an agility trial form and met in person with four individuals. Two individuals were brand new to sports and training agility with their dogs and had not yet trialed, while the other two individuals were experienced agility competitors. We had them fill out the trial form, advising them to fill it out like they were entering their dog in an upcoming trial. We paid attention to where the individuals got stuck, how long it took for them to complete the form taking into account each page, and any additional pain points.

Ultimately, the newer competitors were confused by acronyms and terms stated in the form. They also had confusion with which forms were applicable to them. For example, they both filled out the “move-up” form that was for competitors to move up classes within the same trial, although it did not pertain to them and they would not be able to move up regardless. The frustration for experienced competitors occurred when they had to fill out information that they have filled out before at previous trials. They had no difficulty filling out the forms otherwise.

After synthesizing the data, I began putting together a lower fidelity digital version of the form. For the newer competitors I wanted to focus on providing a way for them to see the definitions of certain classes and acronyms without disturbing the flow or having the hints be disruptive, as the primary job for the user is to fill out the form. I did two iterations of the hints, one with a modal and another with an ornament. The modal felt too invasive as it didn’t allow the user to look at the classes that are available and read the definitions of them at the same time. Instead, a user would have to close the modal out completely, read the options, and open it again. The ornament felt it would allow for some view of both the options and the definitions.

Once I put together the prototype for the form, I brought back in the same interviewers. I gave them two tasks:

  1. Show me where you would find the definition of the JWW class.

  2. Fill out the form like you were signing your dog up for the next trial.

The feedback on the process was overall very positive. All four participants felt it was faster and more intuitive than the paper counterpart.

1 of the 4 individuals had trouble finding the information icon to allow the definitions of the classes to be visible. While the newer competitors had more insight during the “on paper” interview, the experienced competitors had very insightful information during the digital interview.

I had learned that “premier” is not a level of a class, but instead a whole new class by itself. This was important as it changed the organization of classes and levels. I was also given feedback on some specific wording that could potentially confuse newer competitors.

It was a surprise to me to find out that there is actually an online option to register for a trial. One interviewee had mentioned that she usually completes these online. Most people are unaware this option exists and the trial forms do not mention an online option as a way to enter. When discussing the online option with the interviewee, they mentioned that the existing online experience was very cumbersome and found that our prototype was much easier to navigate.

With the feedback given, I revised the prototype taking into consideration the interviewees insights. Notable changes included: Enlarging the information icon to find the definitions of classes, removing a confusing definition for the differences between the “preferred” and “standard” classes, added an option for the event to be added to the competitor’s calendar, and created a new section for “preferred” classes. I re-interviewed all of our participants and the changes were well received.

Final designs and thoughts

I learned quite a bit during this project. My personal goal with this project was to obtain more practice interviewing and analyzing data as well as to think more strategically about the project as a whole. As someone who is known to be more of a perfectionist, I can often get lost in the smaller details which leads me to get tunnel vision. This project helped me really look at the forest for the trees.

I was also able to learn that being able to identify the specific problem helps you really focus on the things that matter. While it’s beneficial to be able to look outwards at the whole picture, sometimes you will need to zoom into specific problems. The key is to know which is needed and when.

If I were to approach the process differently, I would remove some of the survey questions and use them for in-person interviews. There were some answers to the survey questions that when asked in an interview would allow me to gain more insight and delve deeper. For example, when users had answered that they found starting a sport intimidating, I would have liked to ask follow-up questions to determine why.

Moving forward with this project, next steps I’d take would be to continue obtaining feedback on the form we have. I would like to add additional features and forms for different sports. I would also like to interview and meet with secretaries to verify if the information in the form would be able to be received well. I would also like to work with developers to verify what data would be able to be accessed and stored.

I would also like to visit other parts of flow and put time and research into those parts of the journey. While we received some great information that helped inform design decisions pertaining to the event detail page, I feel there was much more research we could do to make the experience better as well as obtain feedback on our final designs in that area.