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CatGo
OVERVIEW
Smart home cat ecosystem that helps you take care of your cat while you are away
Awarded "Most Feasible in 5-10 years" during end of semester demo.
This project was done as part of my graduate degree course SI 612: Pervasive Design at University of Michigan. This course teaches about the fundamentals of designing for IoT products.
This project is a semester long group project consisting of 4 UX designers. Through this project, I learned 2 new methodologies - diary study for user research and user enactment for initial product testing. At the end of this project, we got an opportunity to demo our product and it’s application in front of our whole class.
TIMELINE
Sep 2022 to Dec 2022
12 weeks
MY ROLE
Team project
One of 4 UX Designers
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
Project management
Dairy studies
Surveys
Design Workshops
Product Design
IoT product engineering
PROBLEM
Problem context
forbes.com
78%
Acquired pets during pandemic
81%
18 to 25 year olds have cats as their pets
32%
18 to 25 year olds purchased smart monitoring devices
Now that we are 2 years in the post-pandemic period, everything's slowly going back to normal. This means more in-person classes, meetings, and work. Thus, new pet owners are willing to spend a lot of money on pets as a way to compensate for being away from home. Most of our friends have cats as their pets, including two of my teammates are cat owners.
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It is also seen that 62% people spent more money on pets than usual in the mid-west. We focused on mid-west data as we reside in the mid-west. Gen-Z capturing 32% of the market for smart technology for pets, this shows the current market trend for smart devices in the pet care domain is blooming.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we help ease and prevent cat owners' anxiety and worry while they are away from their pets?
SOLUTION
Final system concept
CatGo provides a smart home ecosystem that consists of a cat collar, a smart cat kit, and the CatGo mobile application.
SOLUTION
Cat collar
A Cat collar is used to track the cat’s location to track the cat’s unusual behavior.
This location is displayed to the user via the CatGo mobile app. This collar will rely on NFC stickers for location tracking.
SOLUTION
Smart cat kit
The smart cat kit is embedded with a weighing scale that helps the user track cat’s feeding, drinking, and bowel movement behavior.
These devices also have motion sensors to help users understand when their Cat visits these devices throughout the day.
SOLUTION
CatGo mobile application
CatGo mobile app displays all the collected data from the collar and smart kit.
It helps the user understand how their cat is doing by providing weekly reports.
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Notifies user about cats' whereabouts
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User can chat with experts from animal hospital regarding any concerns they notice
SOLUTION
Cats' behavior analysis
Along with consumption monitoring, CatGo app provides analysis of cats' behavior and alarms user about abnormality
SOLUTION
Cats' Location tracking
Cats' location can be seen as a map view from the CatGo app.
The map view helps user visualize the intensity of urgency if they are having any concerns regarding their cats
APPROACH
Design process
Duration: 2 weeks
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80x80 idea matrix
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Problem Scoping
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Initial research
Duration: 2 weeks
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Diary studies
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Surveys
Duration: 4 weeks
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Brainstorm matrix
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User Enactments
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Feature refinement
Duration: 4 weeks
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IoT engineering
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Hi-fi prototype
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Demo
APPROACH
Research objectives
Population
Cat owners, especially users who experienced leaving their cats in a veterinary clinic without getting much information about cat’s condition.
Environment & Context
The stress of cat owners being away from their cats when they are being treated at the veterinary clinic is very high
APPROACH
Research Questions
These research questions helped guide the design process and learn more about the relationship of cat owners with their cats.
What types of frustrations, worries, and other emotions do cat owners face?
What kind of interactions do they have with their cats on a day-to-day basis?
What and how do they make decisions regarding the health and care of their cats?
APPROACH
User research methodologies
Dairy Study
With 7 cat owners for a duration of 7 days
Surveys
Designed for cat owners with 84 valid responses
APPROACH
User research insights
APPROACH
Persona
APPROACH
Empathy map
APPROACH
User Journey map
APPROACH
Insights from user research
Concerns
1. Cat owners are concerned about their cat’s eating, drinking, bowel movement behaviors
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2. Cat owners are concerned if they are maintaining good cat hygiene
Curiosity
3. When cat owners are away, they miss their cat and are curious about their cat’s activity
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4. Cat owners find answers about their concerns regarding their cats via google search or from vet clinics
Interestingly
5. Cat owners mostly take cats to the vet annually, check-up visits and vaccines are the most common reasons to bring their cat to the vet
APPROACH
Prototype testing
We created prototypes of 5-6 ideas using day-to-day materials and tested with cat owners for in-use scenario feedback
APPROACH
User Feedback from Prototype Testing
01
Daily behavior tracking
Users preferred this idea and find the data about amount versus frequency to be useful
02
Location Tracking
Users preferred tracking their cat’s location but not be notified all the time
03
Smart Cat Toy
Remote smart toy in intriguing, but not sustainable as cats may get used to it after a while
04
Providing insights
Users would rather prefer an intuitive report with recommendations than just viewing raw data
APPROACH
Product video
3 minute promotional video that explains product features
APPROACH
Limitations
The use of smart collars and NFC stickers for tracking cats' locations was uncertain due to negative reactions observed in some cats during testing. Alternative options such as other physical items or widely-used chips were considered but not tested. The functionality of NFC stickers for location tracking may be limited and using too many could be undesirable in a home environment.
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While the design included a connection with the vet, the underlying system mapping was not thoroughly explored due to time constraints. There is potential for a more complex system or service design to establish a comprehensive relationship among cats, cat owners, and vets.
IMPACT
Final thoughts and next steps
A key stakeholder group of our product is actually the cat, so ideally, we need to do more testing with real cats to see what their reactions would be to the smart products and how those products perform regarding tracking cats’ behavior data. What we had for the demo was comparatively rough, and a detailed and polished redesign for those physical components is needed - that will also be important when testing with the actual cat.
From the users’ end, we will also have to map out better the flow of the CatGo mobile app and the service taking place between cat owners and the vet. If the product is ready for the market from a technical perspective, we should also take the cost into consideration and market the product with a few strongest/standing-out features.
IMPACT
Reflection
IoT designing is rigorous research
This project taught me that designing for IoT products involves rigorous research. We spent lot of our time scoping the problem, conducting user research, research analysis, and finding design opportunities. “Design opportunities” was the keyword of this project, and how research helps identify and cater these opportunities to the chosen target audience.
Facilitating design workshops
Since, this class forced us to think about design opportunities and perform rigorous research, my team spent a lot of our time on whiteboard rather than any other design tools. Our design workshops helped me learn to facilitate group brainstorming, use whiteboard to express and capture down ideas, thoughts, during our brainstorming sessions. This process helped me grow as a designer and visual communicator.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Demo day
We also created a series of physical prototypes to demonstrate our product. We used a motion sensor and other IoT kits to prototype the cat behavior tracking feature and used a water level sensor to prototype the intake tracking feature.
On our demo day, we used a toy dinosaur wearing a hand-made collar to prototype the cat with the smart collar. We used a few boxes to represent the furniture.
Demo insights
From our demo, video shooting, and feedback from others, we learned that:
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While cat owners would be those who pay for the product, cats are actually those who interact with those products. It is likely they would feel uncomfortable with some of the technologies.
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While the concept is promising, we always have chances to rethink the technologies we choose to realize such concepts best.
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Since similar products exist in the market while they have not been popular yet (potentially because of the price), we might take further consideration about the cost and rethink our product’s strength of health monitoring, advice, and vet service.
DEMO
Award Recipient
Most feasible idea in 5-10 years
Two among us are cat owners
Our team consists of four second-year master’s students at the School of Information focusing on the UX track: (left to right) Minshan Tang, Bahar Shahmammadova, Kavitha Ajithkumar Panicker, and Zejun Wu.
