The problem:

  • There are approximately 77.5 million owned dogs in the United States that need to be walked.
  • Many employ professional dog walkers who have the unique challenge of walking unfamiliar dogs in potentially unfamiliar areas.
  • Unpleasent situations encountered by professional dog walkers include encountering areas that triggers a dog, not being able to take into account a dog's behavior, navigating through an unfamiliar path, or not knowing the health and ability of the dog.

Our solution:

    We are proposing the WalkMate, a device the clips on to the dog’s collar that will provide useful functionality necessary to optimize the walking experience. You will be able to keep track of the dog’s health, find and mark points of interest on a walking route, and receive path suggestions for the walk. WalkMate will enable dog walkers to attend to multiple dogs at a time. They can avoid places that are deemed undesirable by taking into account the dogs’ behavior and track the dogs’ health in order to give them the right amount of exercise. With a compatible scanner, all the necessary information will be at the fingertips of the dog walker.

Hardware

The device clips on to a dog's collar and keeps track of the dog's health statistics, provide GPS tracking, and stores the notes associated with that dog. This information can be accessed through the phone app by scanning the clip on the appropriate screen.

Home Page

The home page of the applications allows the user to quickly look up the current dogs the user is walking, allowing easy access to the associated notes and health statistics.

Health Tracking

After scanning the clip, the health tracking screen shows the health statistics for the dog. Information about the dog's heartrate, calories burned, blood pressue, and other statistics are tracked and shown. The screen includes an associated graphic for quick reference on the dog's general health.

Map Finding

The map screen displays a map of the area with the user shown using GPS tracking. It allows the user to quickly find a desired path to walk the dog, taking into account the desired lengths and points of interest or avoidance. It allows the user to track the dog in case it gets lost through the Track Dog feature. It allows the user to pin locations to the map to mark points of interest or points to be avoided.

Notes

After scanning the clip, the note screen shows a list of notes associated with the dog. From there the user can either edit an existing note or add a new note. Any changes made are automatically synced to the clip and can be retrieved again by scanning the clip.

Design Research

  • User research found health monitoring to be a main issue in professional dog walking.
  • Lack of familiarity with the dog was found to cause inconvenient, perhaps dangerous situations.
  • Knowledge of the area was found to be a determinant in having an effective, efficient dog walk.

Design Process

  • We first brainstormed numerous concepts, eventually narrowing the field to three sketches: a clip, a harness, and a leash.
  • Through critique and feedback, we focused on the clip and created an initial prototype.
  • Through usability testing, it was found that note taking functionality was confusing, participants didn't know you needed to scan the clip, and the map interface was unfamiliar.
  • The final prototype streamlined the note taking functionality, made it obvious on the need to scan, and made the map interface more like current map applications.
  • Lastly, a digital mockup was made based on the final prototype, feature mainly only cosmetic changes

About Us

Dan Tran

Computer Science and Engineering

Alia Paddock

Computer Science and Engineering

Adelaide Chung

Computer Science and Engineering

Quyen Truong

Computer Science and Engineering