PawPal
A Smart Home solution focusing on dog health tracking, blending technology
with personalized pet-care.
Scope: 7 Weeks
Software: Figma
Team: 5 people
Task
During the course Interaction Design Project, the task was to create a
Smart Home solution with focus on IoT, automation, and accessibility. The term Smart Home was critically
reflected on and the goal was to create a solution for a problem identified for a specific target
group.
Process
Brainwriting
Benchmarking
Interviews
Survey
Analysis
Evaluation
Prototyping
Wireframing
Brainstorming
Brainwriting
Brainwriting was used to find areas of interests within the group, where each
person wrote down ideas, problems and areas they wanted to explore.
Benchmarking
After picking the broad topic of “dogs and dog owners”, benchmarking was done by
reviewing similar concepts and products to gain an understanding of what is currently on the market and what
is missing.
Interviews
The group conducted three semi-structured interviews with dog
psychologists with the purpose to gather information about dogs’ behavior, health, well-being, and
common problems. One interview was also conducted with a dog owner to understand problems that can
occur and to gather ideas and wishes to meet.
Survey
The purpose of the survey was to gain insights from dog owners and their
perspective. The goal was to gather information about common challenges, separation anxiety, and
stress. The survey resulted in insights from 500 dog owners.
Analysis - Affinity Mapping
The interviews and survey was analyzed with affinity mapping and resulted in ten
identified problem areas:
Separation anxiety
Time Management and Daily Routine
Behavior Management
Environmental impact
Social Interaction and Behavior
Physical Health Challenges
Health Monitoring
Emotional Stimulation
Stress Indicators
Dog Owner Knowledge
Brainstorming & Wireframing
The group used crazy 8 to explore many solutions in an affective way. After
choosing a well-being app tracking dogs’ stress levels, active minutes, sleep, and location, wireframes
were created to explore different layouts and components.
Final Design
PawPal is a health assistant for dog owners to track their dog’s well-being by
monitoring stress, behavioral patterns, and activity levels. Sensors integrated into a harness detect
the dog's heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), and this data, along with GPS tracking
information, is sent to the app and visualized with statistics. The app also features both recommended
guides based on your dog’s statistics and general guides to help with training and eliminating
behavioral problems. These features contribute to improving your dog’s well-being and, in turn,
strengthen the bond between owner and dog. The concept and app were evaluated with follow-up interviews
with the dog psychologists.
Homepage with overview
Statistics page
Detailed statistics page
Guides page
Map view with location