FitCat

Role

Product Designer

Duration

2016.09 ~ 2016.12

Keywords

iOS App, Pet Health Care, Pat Fitness

Award

Best MPS Project of 2016

60% of cats in the US are overweight or obese. As human beings, we make diet plans to lose weight and stay healthy. But how about cats? FitCat provides a solution of planning and tracking diet for cats.

___Product Vision

About FitCat

In 2015, our clients Paul Cashman ‘73, a cat lover and developer, asked Dr. Bruce Kornreich DVM ‘92, PhD ‘05, a veterinary cardiologist and associate director of the Cornell Feline Health Center about ideas for apps that could help cat owners, veterinarians, or feline health researchers manage cat’s health. This app aims to improve the health and well-being of cats, by helping owners manage the cat’s weight.

Problem

Cat owners couldn't find a scientific guidelines to help their cat loose weight.

Hypothesis

If cat owners are provided with with an actionable diet plan and tools to keep tracking, their cats will live a more healthy life.

Approach

Use a scientific formula to generate diet plan for cats. Provide diet and weight tracking to see the performance.

Challenge

How do we create an experience that is effortless and seamless for cat owners to stick to the plan.

01/Research

___User Personas

Understand the cat owners

Before we dive into design, we did a research on cat owners' demographic information, it helped us to distill the requirements of the system.

Cynthia - Housewife

Goal: Managing the massive amount of files of a project. Keep tracking of different versions of design.

Behavior:  Ben uses cloud storage to store his files. But none of the cloud storage services allows him to preview his 3d models. He does version control by naming files based on versions.

Needs & Quotes: 

1. Manage nested files:  “A house model can host many  room models. A room model can host many furniture models. ”

2. Manage template file and its instances:  “My college Bill takes my templates and creates instances with different materials.”

3. Preview files:  “3D files are not viewable on web. We have to create a folder for each file with its preview image in it. ”

Keywords: 
Management, Version control

Daisy - Student

Goal:  Keep tracking of people's feedback and the iterations of design based on feedback.

Behavior:  Alex uses cloud drive to store files. She uses instant message to communicate with the team about design. She uses dropbox to store design files and share with people.

Needs & Quotes: 

1. Get feedback:  ““Sharing design is always challenging. We communicate about design through Slack and share design through Dropbox. There's no easy way to keep tracking all versions and design decisions been made. ”

2. Reference Multiple Files:  “I need to open multiple files when designing, for example, UI kit, PRDs. But they are alway stored in different places”

Keywords:  feedback, iteration

___What's working What's not working

Understand FitCat 1.0

In the Spring 2016 semester, a team of students designed and built the version 1.0 of the app and passed the project to us. We conducted 3 usability testing with cat owners to identify problems and opportunities.

The structure is not intuitive.

The old information structure separated plan, feeding and weight datafor each cat. It’s not intuitive for the user because people usually perceive cat as one entity.

Hard to track the progress.

As a result of separating the feeding data and the weight data, it is hard for the user to track how changing the diet affects the weight of the cat.

Data input fields are lack of reference.

For data fields includes "BCS Status" and "Food Calories", the app didn't provide reference for the user, making it almost impossible to input accurate data.

Visual design needs to be improved.

A lot of elements in the app is not aligned or not following the iOS design guidelines.

02/ Strategy

______Transfer User Needs into Requirements

Restructure the app

______Transfer User Needs into Requirements

Feature Outline

Create Diet Plan

By entering the cat's body condition and selecting the wanted frequency of feeding and duration of the diet, the app will create and diet plan about how much calories should be fed everyday.

Log in Feeding Data

After meal time, the user will receive notification to log in the feeding data. Users are able to select the brand of food from the database and enter the amount of food they feed. The app will calculate the calories for the user.

Track Progress

The app will notify the user to log in the cat's weight every other week to help user track the progress. When the data indicates abnormal weight changes, user can easily share the report from the app to consult their veterinary.

03/ Process

04/ Final Design

Create diet plan

Help cat owners to identify their cat's body condition and generate a customized plan.

Log in feeding data

Fed regular meal or extra treats? We account for all possible feedings!

Next - Comake