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Evaluation

During our evaluation phase, I think the most important step our team took was creating a plan for improvement. Last week, we received feedback on certain components of our implementation in class (such as creating a more long term market and adding collaborations with pet experts). We reflected on these results and evaluated which ones to add into next steps. It was actually fun taking a look at our original problem and idea (primarily centered around pet wellness) and looking at where our final solution ended. Overall, I am happy with the work our team did and we are looking forward to moving into the final presentation and reflection stages, and mostly are happy with the idea that our idea could potentially get more animals out of shelters and into loving homes.

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Implementation (round 2)

This week, team Ravenclaw did a deeper dive into our implementation. We refined our mockups and user flow, and began creating a presentation deck.

This is not a failure, but we did end up changing our name. In class, people suggested that the name "Pawtner" might alienate those who are seeking pets without paws. We changed our name to "Amica", which means friend in Latin, with the tagline "find your next best friend." We also talked a bit more about revenue and competitive analysis, which were some areas also mentioned in class.

We have been using Figma for visual assets, with Clara taking the lead on designing. We talked about main flow, color scheme, and branding as a team. We have been using Canva for creating our final presentation, which will include our assets and prototype along with some competitive analysis, statistics, and revenue information.

Our team is excited to see Amica coming to life!

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Implementation

This week, our group moved on to the initial implementation steps of Pawtner (also known as Pet Match). We divided up the work in order to: create prototype screens, come up with an end user flow, come up with the experience for breeders and shelters on the other side of the app, and re define the problem statement and summarize our overall intention.

If we were to pitch this idea, I believe we would start off by re iterating our newly defined problem statement: How might we create partnerships between pets and people that put wellness and compatibility first? We want to allow potential pet guardians to independently and effectively discover, filter, and match with pets that align best with their lifestyles and needs. This problem statement is at the core of our application and an important starting point.

From a visual perspective, we created a few mock-ups as to how screens might look along with a user flow diagram. These effectively show the process of walking through the application for an end user, along with a high level definition of how it might look.

We will continue refining our implementation in the upcoming weeks and really focusing on what the end user experience will look like and how that will tie back in to our mission statement.

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Ideation

Our group began our ideation process in class. We started with a casual discussion of what some ideas that went along with our problem statement (around empowering pet owners to make the best decisions about their pet's wellness). After, we created a board for us to post ideas as we thought of them, because sometimes inspiration strikes at random times. When we came together as a team, we added a few last ideas before organizing them.

Once we had our ideas in front of us, it was time to sort. We focused on a top, middle, and bottom tier of ideas, but the middle and bottom didn't necessarily represent "bad" ideas, just ideas that either already may exist in the marketplace or might just not be feasible to implement. Whatever our final solution is will likely draw inspiration from ideas in all three tiers.

What emerged from our brainstorming session were our top three ideas. These were: Tik-Tok style video Q&As and tutorials related to pet where audience could leave feedback, a centralized platform to match pets from breeders or shelters to owners based on selected criteria, and location-based pet wellness selection (think Yelp for pet wellness, but with highly specific search and algorithm suggestions). We are excited to explore these ideas and select a final.

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Definition

Our group started out defining out problem around "pet wellness" separately and then came together as a group to see what our individual ideas were.

My individual idea / problem statement centered around how to inform pet owners about the best wellness services in their area. Ideally, the pet owner would have a way to find wellness services that are an excellent match for their particular problems (i.e. a trainer that specialized in positive reinforcement or a vet that specialized in a unique illness).

After coming together in our group with our individual ideas, we realized the overarching theme of all of our ideas involved how to best inform pet owners to make the best decisions about their pet’s wellness. Once we came up with this idea, we used the morphological analysis to determine where some gaps in the industry were. Though we still have a ways to go to narrow down our focus, defining the problem was a positive first step in that journey.

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Analysis

Our team came up with our topic very naturally. All of us have pets in our lives in some form and it seemed like a good fit for us. We split up our research into different categories and honed in on tools that already exist in the pet space and how we can make them work for us. I particularly focused my research on specific apps and tools that already existed in the pet wellness space. We also talked to pet owners around us about their existing habits surrounding their pets.

The most interesting finding in my preliminary research from talking to people was that almost every pet owner I spoke to used Chewy. I also learned about some new applications that I am excited to use myself, such as Bring Fido, to find dog friendly hotels, restaurants, etc. It was more effective in my opinion to talk to other pet owners rather than blindly search the web since that gave me a feel of what people are using daily and how they use them.

Overall it was a very interesting first step into my venture into the world of pet wellness and I am very excited to continue our research and see what comes up!

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Acceptance

This past weekend, my puppy ended up in the ER because she swallowed a grape off the floor. After three long days of procedures and blood work just to be sure she was okay, she is good to go! Although she didn't experience any symptoms, this experience was a wake up call of the realities of pet ownership and how important pet health is.

Our team decided to focus our project around pet health and wellness. Many people struggle with managing their pet's health, whether it be coordinating vet appointments, finding trainers, remembering flea and tick medication, and more. I am so excited to embark on a process that will help pet parents like myself and teammates have full agency over the wellness and health of their pets and feel more informed in general!

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Exploring Creativity

What does creativity mean to me?

If I had to answer this question growing up, I would have automatically said that I am not a “creative type.” I always associated creativity with visual art and that became the default that stuck in my head throughout my childhood. In 5th grade art class, we had to keep sketch books and I received a B- for the quality of my artwork. It was then I decided that I was not creative and would stick to other subjects.

As I grew older, however, I discovered a love of writing. I reasoned with myself that writing had to be a creative exercise, right? After all, my school literally offered creative writing class, which I excelled at. 

Then, I moved into college and found a new love - Computer Science. This threw me in to yet another existential crisis (reflecting back, I seem to have had a lot of these). Computer science is arguably a left brain activity, and I felt that I was losing my creative side by pursuing that as a major. I felt lost because I was not as left-brained as many of my computer science classmates and not as right-brained as those who chose to pursue more “creative” disciplines.

After a few years in the work force, and especially after finally finding myself in a career that synthesizes my strengths, I have come to the conclusion that creativity is not about being left brained or right brained. There is opportunity for creativity in any field. Creativity is the process of bringing something new into the world, whether it be a painting, a short story, or code that introduces a new functionality. Innovation occurs in so many different forms and it is up to me to find my own creative process.