Exploring Dog Walker's Interactions
Mixed methods research project conducted over 10 weeks in Spring 2018
Some of the lovely dogs who inspired this research
Dogs have always been a big part of my life. I was lucky enough to have a dog, Taylor, growing up. Taylor was a sweet dog, but she wasn’t always the friendliest, especially on walks. Now, my friends and family members are all getting dogs to raise on their own, so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about what happens during dog walks and if the problems I had in the past could be fixed.
In the spring of 2018, I ran a 10-week research project to learn about the interactions between dog-walkers and other pedestrians in the hope of finding ways to improve these interactions. I conducted 3 user research studies: field research, interviewing, and surveying, to gather different types of qualitative and quantitative data to analyze and report on. The results from these 3 research studies culminated in a final research report, where I summarized my main findings and made recommendations for designs that would help increase the likelihood of positive interactions between dog walkers and other pedestrians.
Sections
Documents
Design Question and Context
How can we promote better interactions between dog walkers and pedestrians in public spaces?
Dog walking is a standard activity for any dog owner, but rising dog ownership among Millenials, who are more and more likely to live in rented apartments with little to no yard space, means that owners may go on walks more frequently (see full report for citations). This is especially true in urban communities, where public spaces for dog walking like sidewalks and parks are already shared by many more people than in suburban or rural communities. The goal of this research was to discover what factors lead to bad interactions between dog walkers and pedestrians and determine how these problems could be alleviated.
The design question encompasses 4 different major players in the system of the dog walking experience: the dog walker, the dog, the pedestrians involved, and the environment they are in. This research project focused on learning from the data and experience of the dog walker to better understand each player in the entire system of interactions between dog walkers and pedestrians.
Field Research Study
This research project began with field observations because I wanted to gather a lot of exploratory data on interactions and see if there were any trends that were more frequent or more surprising that could be honed in on in subsequent studies. I employed a structured form of field observation known as deep hanging-out in this field study. I did observations in three locations I believed dog walker and pedestrian interactions would be most prevalent: the UW quad, the U-district Farmers Market, and the Warren G Magnuson Dog Park. I collected data by handwriting notes, which I then cleaned up by typing out. I used an affinity analysis to group together similar situations and observations to discover the most common aspects of different interactions.
Data Collection
Before starting any actual observations, I carefully planned out what questions I wanted to try to learn the answers to in several different areas of focus, which ranged from demographic data to possessions involved in the interactions and so on. I also created a note rubric based on these questions to best differentiate the important data points from each interaction.
I took these materials to each location and wrote out as much as I could about each individual interaction I could observe for about 30 to 45 minutes.
Analysis
As my scattered notes show below, the rubric did help me keep track of which interaction answered which questions I had but could have included more space for the actual “interaction” to keep my notes cleaner. I also made sure to write a concluding paragraph at the end of each session to summarize the main major and surprising findings from that session.
After finishing the three different sessions, I cleaned up my notes by typing them out with more legible formatting. After going through these notes more, I made sticky notes for individual observations and started affinity diagramming for common themes and types of interactions. I showed affinity in observations by describing negative, neutral, and positive experiences with direct and indirect interactions between dog walkers, pedestrians, and dogs, as well as observations that did not involve interactions.
Sample of Notes
Sample of Affinity Analysis
Results
The analysis led to three key findings:
- The environment had a major effect on if the non-dog walker had an interaction with the dog walker or just their dog.
- All positive interactions between dog walkers and non-dog walkers were direct interactions that centered around the dog.
- All the negative interactions between dog walkers and non-dog walkers were indirect interactions that centered around improper traffic flow.
These findings informed the main focus of the next part of this project, the interview study. A more in-depth explanation of these key findings and design recommendations based on these findings can be found in the full report of this study below.
Interview Study
I interviewed three dog owners who regularly walked their dogs using a semi-structured interview format for the interview study. The inclusion criteria for interviewees required that they were a dog owner who walked their dog at least once a week because these dog owners would be more likely to recognize patterns in their interactions compared to dog owners who did not walk their dogs as often. I reached out to three friends who owned dogs and confirmed that all three met the inclusion criteria. I recorded and took rough notes during each interview and later transcribed the entirety of each interview for data analysis. I used thematic analysis to highlight common themes across all the interviews.
The main goals of this interview study were to further investigate the findings of the field study and to learn more in-depth information on dog walkers and their individual experiences to see how they are similar and different from each other.
Interview Planning
I chose a semi-structured interview format because I knew not all dog owners had the same routines or experiences during dog walks and I wanted to be able to explore those differences through semi-structured questioning. Before writing the interview protocol, I went back to the results of the field study and defined some overarching research questions I wanted the interview study to help me answer, some of which included: “Why do interactions between dog walkers and non-dog walkers start?” and “What types of interactions with non-dog walkers do dog walkers enjoy? What types of interaction do dog walkers not enjoy?”
When writing the interview questions, I started by asking general questions about their dogs and dog walking to get the conversation started and to get more context about their specific situations. Later in the interview, I start asking more specific questions about their experience with positive and negative interactions with pedestrians and for an example of their most recent dog walk. All of these questions also had multiple potential follow up questions prepared to ensure that I learned as much as possible from each question.
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The beginning of several pages of transcribed and coded interviews
Analysis
I took notes during each interview on what answers stuck out to me and transcribed the entirety of each interview. With this combination of notes, I coded each interview to discover the most common themes across all the interviews. After narrowing down and combining these themes further, I came upon three key findings that were backed by several common themes and multiple quotes:
- The environment of a location affects interactions
- Interactions with pedestrians were varied based on the dog
- Dog walkers use walks for dog training/improvement
With these three major findings backed by two research studies, I planned a final survey study to see if these findings were backed by dog walkers on a larger scale. A complete explanation of the interview report’s findings and recommendations can be found below.
Using thematic analysis to group common interview themes and quotes into findings
Survey Study
I surveyed a wide range of dog walkers to extend and validate the results of the two previous studies with quantitative data. I created the survey using Google Forms and distributed it through various social media sites like Facebook and Reddit. The survey had a range of screening, demographic, and specific questions to discover trends among similar and different dog walkers. The survey ended up having 64 valid responses. I exported my results to Excel, where I cleaned up the data, analyzed the results, and made graphs to visualize the findings of the survey.
Some of my favorite (and most surprising) survey results
Survey Planning
Before writing survey questions, I reiterated the main research questions based on the results of the previous two studies so that I could learn as much relevant information as possible. I also determined the inclusion criteria for participants in the survey: dog owners who walk their dogs at least once every two weeks. This excluded professional dog walkers, who may have a lot of experience but did not have a close personal connection and investment with their dogs that I wanted to learn more about in this survey.
When writing survey questions, I made sure to ask questions that would get demographic data as well as data to validate the previous findings and explore new possible research findings. I also worked to make sure the questions were unbiased and the available answer did not lead participants to make certain responses. I ended up having 10 major questions with a range of answer types, like ranking, rating, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions, with specific rationales and plans for analysis which can be found below.
Example survey question with the rationale for asking the question and plan for analyzing the results
Examples of results from demographic questions
Analysis
After pushing the survey through various relevant social media channels, I ended up with 64 valid responses and tons of answer data to work with. With all this data available, I had to break it down into understandable, meaningful, and unbiased interpretations. This involved using excel to compare data from multiple questions to see if there were strong correlations.
Some results I found I was expecting to validate, like new dog owners using walking for training. Other results were more surprising but followed with data I found in my previous studies, specifically, that dog owners with larger dog breeds had less positive interactions than those with medium and smaller dog breeds. Some results were very surprising and may require more research to understand fully, like the substantial drop in dog owner happiness during walks as their dogs became elderly.
All the graphs for the major findings in this study
Results
After completing the analysis of the data, I determined three key findings based on these results:
- Natural environments foster more positive interactions
- Physical dog characteristics can lead to more negative interactions
- Reasons for dog walking change with dog age
I made a presentation to explain each of the results and the proof behind it in detail, which can be found below. This was the final research study before synthesizing the results of all of the three research studies into a final report.
Final Results and Recommendations
Narrowing down the results of my studies was a challenge, but these three findings and recommendations best summarize my research project as a whole:
1. Certain physical dog characteristics lead to more negative interactions than dog behavior/personality
Physical dog characteristics, such as breed and size, were found to be a determining factor on whether a dog walker has more positive or negative interactions. Survey results showed that dog walkers who owned larger dogs were much more likely to see their dog’s size as a negative influence on their interactions. Interview results showed a dog with a less friendly personality but more favorable breed having better interactions than a dog with a friendlier personality but less favorable breed.
Recommendation: Design easily visible dog accessories that acknowledge the issues that some pedestrians have with certain physical dog characteristics.
Quick mockup of a stigma acknowledinging dog accessory
2. Dog walkers with younger dogs value dog training during walks, and socialization with people can be part of that dog training.
Dog training/improvement was found to be a major reason for going on dog walks for owners of younger dogs, and dog socialization with people was found to be an aspect of dog training during walks. Survey and interview results confirm the importance of dog training during dog walks and that dog walkers have their dogs socialize with people as a part of that training.
Recommendation: Design treats that are specially made for dog training during dog walks and for allowing pedestrians to participate in dog training.
Quick sketch of special dog treats
3. Better interactions occurred more frequently in natural environments compared to non-natural environments
Natural environments, such as hiking trails and large parks, were found to foster more positive interactions between dog walkers and pedestrians than non-natural environments, such as residential neighborhoods or outdoor markets/malls. Survey, interview, and field observation results all show that dog walkers had better interactions more frequently in natural environments
Recommendation: Add more elements of natural environments (such as greenery, trees, bushes, flowers, etc) when designing non-natural environments such as residential neighborhoods and malls/markets.
Further rationale and explanation of these recommendations can be found in the final report for the research study below.
Next Steps
I would follow up on my findings by getting the pedestrian’s perspective on interaction with dog walkers. In my research, I chose to focus on the dog walker’s perspective because pedestrians are a much broader population of people to try to understand collectively. However, I think my research would benefit greatly from understanding both sides so I can get the full picture on interactions and what more can be done to improve them.
I would also follow up by testing prototypes of my main design recommendations that could be made into products with dog walkers to see if they help increase the average number of positive interactions the dog walker has during walks. If they did not, I would likely have to go back and conduct more research to see why they did not work and what other design recommendations could be made that would work better for dog walkers.
Reflection
From this research, I learned a lot more about the user research process and what practices lead to the best research results. One lesson that will stick with me throughout the rest of my career is the importance of proper planning for the success of the research. I believe that writing out my plan for each research study in advance made a big difference in the quality of the research findings. I also learned how important it is to create a proper schedule for the research process and follow it completely. The research studies went a lot smoother when I followed my work back schedules, especially in the final steps of each study. In the future, I would like to make my work back schedules more specific, with benchmarks to meet on specific days. This way, I will know exactly how far ahead or behind I am during each major step of a research study. I plan to continue doing user research throughout my time at college and eventually as a career. I really enjoy learning more about different people’s varied experiences and I want to help make those experiences as good as they can be through well-researched designs. It has been a pleasure doing research for this class and UW research groups and I hope to continue doing research in my future coursework and with more UW research groups until I can do it as a career.
Mario Paolini 2023
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