About Pemory - Pet Memory
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Pemory is a concept app designed for current or expectant pet owners. Our goal is to help users to solve the pet related problems they may encounter in their life and prevent pet owners from giving up their pets easily.
Roles and responsibilities
iOS design
App icon
Interaction design
Visual design
Interactive prototype
User research
Competitor analysis
Concept video
Award
🏆2014 Interaction Award (2014 IxDA Award) - Selected
🏆2014 iF Concept Design Awards - Selected / 300 Entries
🏆2013 MobileHero - User Experience Design Competition - Excellent Work
Background
In recent years, the number of stray animals in Taiwan continues to increase. A large stray animal population causes public health, environmental and nuisance problems. The strategy adopted by the government to solve these problems is to capture those animals and keep them in the shelter. If those animals are not adopted in 7 days, they will be euthanized.
As pet lovers, it’s a really sad situation for us. We wondered why people abandon their pets. We want to find out the key insights for stray animal issue. Moreover, we would like to come up with a new solution to improve this situation.
Opportunity
According to BBC news, Taiwan is the No.1 country in exporting abandoned animals. In recent years, the number of stray animals in Taiwan has continued to increase. A large stray animal population causes public health, environmental, and nuisance problems. The strategy adopted by the government to solve these problems is to capture those animals and keep them in a shelter. If those animals are not adopted in 7 days, they will be euthanized. As pet lovers, it’ s a really sad situation for us. We wondered why people abandon their pets. We wanted to find out the key insights for the stray animal issue. We would like to come up with a new solution to improve this situation.
Understanding our users and their pain points
In Taiwan, the changes in living environment or living condition is the most common reason why people give up pets. The changes can be very diverse, including moving, having newborn babies, or breaking up. Another common reason is that the living needs of pets go beyond the owners’ expectations. But, why do people think giving up animals is the only possible solution? We found out that most people regard pets as property.
When a tool is not useful or no longer needed, we can always throw it away. However, pets are not tools. They provide us unconditional love. On the first day they come to our home, they are already our family. We never abandon our kids, so why abandon our pets?
With this in mind, we designed an app specifically for current or expectant pet owners to remind them that pets are our dearest family, and encourage them to interact with their pets and keep all the beautiful moments with pets, just like what they do with family. Furthermore, we try to help pet owners to solve pet-related problems they may face in their life.
Sketch
I began to sketch as many different directions as I could, pick the best one solution. After getting to a good place with each iteration in Photoshop, I would then turn to After effect to build UI animation.
Idea
This project not only tries to solve the pet ownership problem, but also concerns the stray animal issues of society's stray animal issues. We find out the difficulties of keeping pets that pet owners may encounter and offer alternative solutions other than abandonment for the owners to help them be more responsible.
Impact
Users can use this app to find out the perfect pet for themselves through a simple quiz about their residential environment, family members, personality, preference, and so on. Besides, this app also offers tips and guidelines for new owners to help them get ready for having a new pet step by step, and providing alternative solutions for the pet-related problems.
In addition, the keeping and sharing features of this app encourage users to create special memories with pets to earn more badges and keep every sweet moment they spent with pets. With this app, users can take pictures, record videos, keep their traces and write down the funny stories with their pets anywhere and anytime and share with pet lovers around the world. Furthermore, the users can also get advices or useful information from other users’ sharing or check-in records.
We believe that this app helps to reduce the burden of keeping pets and lessen anxiety of new owners. Further, it offers a supportive platform for pet owners to get help when they have problems about their pets. It prevents pet owners from giving up their pets easily.
Wireframe
First, I sketch rough wireframe that based on iOS 7 guideline, and discuss it with my partner. And I think that sketching is a great way to get the ball rolling and can save hours before our start the digital design.
Flow and UI design
Second, I start plan specific interaction flow so that I can figure out my interaction process and start design UI.
Design - matching
‘Matching’ is a function which provides a simple quiz for anyone looking for the perfect pet for themselves. It does this by asking users to answer some questions about their lifestyle, residential environment, family members, personality, and preference. Based on these answers, the system will match them with the right pets for adoption. It also offers tips and guidelines for new pet owners to help them step by step to get ready for pet ownership.
Design - keeping
This function helps users to record all the incredible moments and sweet memories with their pets anytime and anywhere. For example, they can write down interesting things and take photos while taking a walk with their pets. And all the records will be archived on their personal page. This motivates users to interact with and create more special memories with their pets by providing a variety of special badges. It helps users to establish a close relationship with their pets.
Design - sharing
A social function provides users a platform to share every precious moment they spend with their pets with pet lovers around the world. They can exchange their funny stories and experiences anytime. When they encounter pet-related problems, they can simply ask other owners for help. Users can also get useful information such as pet-friendly restaurants or nearby pet hospitals.
Craft
The interface of Pemory is not only simple and easy to use, but also colorful and fun. We follow the design principles of ios7 and adopt a cute style to develop a flat clean design.
In matching function, users have to answer some questions for looking for their perfect pets. Our mission is to keep it simple, intuitive, and easy to understand. We do not want users feel bored with answering questions. Therefore, we design a series of visually rich and engaging questions for users. Each option of those questions is presented with exquisite illustrations. Answering the questions is as pleasant as reading picture Books.
Regarding the timeline page, we think it is not just a platform for sharing, we consider the page as an archive of the shared memories of users and their pets. So we make the timeline just like their personal world. Besides, we design lots of unique and cute badges to commemorate user’s relationship achievements with their pets.
In addition, we design lots of intuitive interaction for users. For example, users can use pinch/spread gesture to find out useful information in sharing function or drag the other pet on user’s photo to exchange different pet’s timeline.