Guide Dogs — DAVE MULLEN

As part of a 5 Year Strategic Plan the Guide Dogs digital team wanted to explore how design thinking and emerging technologies could help the organisation to improve customer and staff satisfaction, increase productivity and reduce operational costs. I teamed up with a UX Consultant and a Technical Architect to run a series of workshops designed to explore how Data, Voice, IoT and Automation could improve the key services offered by Guide Dogs.

THE REHOMING CHALLENGE

Every year Guide Dogs breeds and trains hundreds of dogs and around 75% go on to become active guide dogs. The remaining 25% are unfortunately withdrawn from service as they are not suitable or have health conditions that prevent them becoming a guide dog. Dogs that are not suitable for work can still make great pets, and Guide Dogs rehomes over 900 dogs each year with new owners. The existing guide dog rehoming process was far from ideal with many pain points for applicants and the regional rehoming teams.

THE OUTCOME

The first stage in defining a new rehoming experience was to conduct a workshop with key Guide Dogs stakeholders, including the CTO, Head of Digital and members of the regional rehoming teams. In part one of the workshop we ran the team through a series of questions to capture the primary users of the current rehoming service. Next we asked the rehoming team to describe the current rehoming experience in order to map each stage of the process. In part two everyone took part in a ‘Crazy 8’ task to generate 8 ideas in 8 minutes, a high pressure but fun activity.

Following the workshop we gathered additional research around the concept of matching services, including pet and human dating experiences. We then generated ideas for the future rehoming experience and defined the key success criteria for an initial prototype. I created a user journey to show the new experience, identifying where a matching algorithm could automate the process. This would save time for the Rehoming Teams and allow them to focus on finding the best possible home for each dog. The final stage was to present the workshop output, additional research and proposed prototype plan to the Guide Dogs stakeholder team.

MY PROJECT ROLE

Strategy and planning
Requirements capture
Workshop facilitation
Idea generation
User flows