The change l want to see

Project report

When I saw the title “The Change I want to see”, I was very confused. I thought about a lot of things, such as the change in curriculum and the impact of aging. But there’s more to being inspired by what’s around you, and in my case, it’s my cat. According to BBC news in 2021, pet ownership rose by 47% in the wake of the outbreak, meaning more and more people have pets in recent years. According to sociologists, pets have a positive impact on people’s mental health, which partly explains the rise in pet sales during the pandemic. However, for first-time pet owners, Whether there is a software that can help them raise their pets better aroused my curiosity.

After such background investigation and combining with my own experience, I choose pet mobile phone software as the problem I want to change. Before starting, I investigated the existing pet apps with high usage and recommendation volume in the market. Petrescures by Home Again, an app that includes pet medical rescue and finding lost pets. Petparent, an online community of pet lovers and owners. Dogsync, an app that allows you to track your pet’s steps, eating habits, medical records and more. Neko Atsume, a virtual cat breeding app. These apps include pet training, virtual pets, pet rescue, pet diary and a host of other functions. These apps don’t have much in common, but target users are the same, pet owners and animal lovers.

Based on these existing apps, I conducted a basic questionnaire survey among 30 pet owners on their demand for pet apps. Pet owners pay more attention to pet health and pet derived services, such as pet grooming, pet training, pet funeral and so on. But the data were limited because all of the participants already owned pets. For an excellent pet app, a clear understanding of stakeholders can help me think more clearly. For an app, the most important thing is definitely the positioning of users, namely pet owners and animal lovers, and then app designers. Then comes the source of content in the app, such as pet supply factories, pet hospitals, pet service industry, etc. Finally, the brand IP is essential for all kinds of social shopping software.

It’s not easy to make an app that people like. The first one is the making and design of app. I have no professional knowledge in this field, and app making will be very limited. Secondly, the attraction of APP users. I need to know what kind of APP is lacking and needed by current users. And then the cooperation with all kinds of pet products, pet hospitals and so on. Finally, there is how the platform generates revenue. After communicating with my tutor, I am still confused about what should be included in this app. I have two ideas, one is an app about pet adoption and the follow-up after adoption, and the other is a super app that contains a series of pet raising knowledge, pet socialising and pet services. I will decide based on the practicalities of making the app and the data from the questionnaire I will carry out later to see what people really need. Before starting the questionnaire, I will analyse the existing pet apps and compare them with the pet data in recent years.

Update:

However, before researching, I should actually focus on the problem I want to solve, not the solution, and should not be limited to making an app. So I screened out two issues, namely, how to reduce the number of people adopting pets Abandonment problems of pets and the painful emotions after pets are abandoned.

Target audience:

· People who lives in Urban area
· People who live from their family
· Single means without full social connections
· Who is demographic

Stakeholders:

· RSPCA(the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and we’ve been here for animals since 1824. We’re the world’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity, with the primary focus of rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming or releasing animals across England and Wales.)

· People who are willing to adopt pets

What to do next

Identifying pre-existing data on abandonments rate before and after the pandemic

• Identifying a demographic that is mainly responsible for abandoning a pet (so what are the reasons why someone might not only decide to get a pet, but also abandon it)
• Is there a tool that will be able to prevent this problem from happening / educate people whether they’re ready to commit to a pet for years to come?

Reference

• Halbreich, E.D. and Mueller, M.K., 2022. Profiles of family pet ownership during the COVID-19 pandemic. Current Psychology, pp.1-5.
• Mueller, M. K., King, E. K., Callina, K., Dowling-Guyer, S., & McCobb, E. (2021). Demographic and contextual factors as moderators of the relationship between pet ownership and health. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 9(1), 701–723. https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2021.1963254
• Wells, D. L. (2019). The state of research on human–animal relations: Implications for human health. Anthrozoös, 32(2), 169–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2019.1569902
• 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56362987> [Accessed 12 March 2021].

After reading the reference l have make a bibliography for understand the article and data clearly.