Background

Of the estimated 78 million dogs owned in the US (44% of all households), approximately 8 million are lost each year, with 3.3 million entering shelters. Nearly 1 million of these dogs are never identified and in many cases, euthanized.

Snoutscan’s mission is to effectively identify lost dogs and reunite them with their owners through a user friendly mobile app that maps thousands of unique biometric points on a dog’s snout.

My Role

I was brought on as the sole designer to reimagine the app’s UX while also giving it a much needed UI refresh. With only three weeks before a proof of concept was due to the stakeholders, I delivered a robust experience that would be used to seek additional funding.

Original Design and Assets provided to me

Design System & Brand

We used Apple’s design guidelines to ensure the experience maintained the standards needed for iOS app store approval. We created a robust design system that included a grid, text styles, components and a color palette that was applied across all screens.

On-boarding

We thought it was important to provide users with an on-boarding experience that explained the mission of the company. Most users are unaware a dog’s snout is unique and essentially acts like a fingerprint.

Signup & Login

The stakeholders wanted a simple signup process that allowed for both email and Facebook registration. We only required users to input the minimum amount of information at this time to streamline UX.

Create Profile

Once a user signs up, the next step is to have them complete their profile. In order to thoroughly document their dog, we require a user to complete the following screens below.

Snout Capture

The most important, and difficult, aspect of this project was capturing a dog’s snout. We needed to make this process simple, as settling a dog down for a period of time is not always an easy task. Borrowing inspiration from Apple’s facial recognition software, we used a multi-step process with auto-capture and text prompts. As we conducted some puppy (user) tests, we soon realized it was difficult to maintain their attention span long enough to finish the process. Therefore, we added a button to emulate the sound of a squeaky toy noise to direct the dog’s attention to the camera.

Mark as Lost & Reward

We created the following 3-step process to mark a dog as missing. First, an owner will have to set the last known location. This can be done manually or by enabling location sharing. Next, the user will enter the time it occurred. Finally, an optional reward can be set to help incentivize others to participate. Once this is complete, a notification will be sent to all other users within a certain distance of the last known location. They will be able to view the profile of the missing dog.

Prototype

After many rounds of testing and iteration, we were able to develop a fully functioning prototype for stakeholders to use in the future.