Xolo Supply
Timeline
June 2021 - Present
My Role
Design Strategist
Project Details
My Role
Design Strategist: integrated design-thinking strategies, social media marketing, collaborative UX team based design, and overall responsibility for developing content strategies based on the needs of the community. Working at a small start up requires me to be a jack of all trade, as a result I wear many hats throughout the day.
Team:
Founder: Julio Torres
Design Strategist: Michelle Thangtamsatid
Creative Director: Omi Coronado
Sales: Belen Carillo
Photography and Videography: Sean Fonseca and Nacho Rios
Together, we are a small group of friends who came together to create Xolo Supply Co.
Background
What is a Xoloitzcuintle?
One of the most rare and unique dog breeds in the world, the Xoloitzcuintle (or Xolo for short) has been around for 4000 years. Also known as the “Mexican hairless dog,” these hairless, ancient doggos are revered and have long been a culturally-significant symbol in Mexico. They are the first dogs of the Americas and are famous for their spiritual ties to the Aztec gods.
The Problem
Xolos are a rare dog breed. Not everyone knows how to care for them given their unique hairless disposition. New owners often face many frequently asked questions:
Sunscreen or no sunscreen?
Should I use human or dog shampoo?
Do Xolos need to be moisturized?
Why do they have less teeth than other dogs?
So many questions and not a whole lot of answers out there. That’s where we come in.
What does Xolo Supply do?
Xolo Supply's goal is to educate the public and promote the Xoloitzcuintle breed through stories, art, and curate breed specific merchandise. We aim to grow the existing Xolo community in every way, but specifically with regard to education. Xolo Supply Co. is made up of 3 big focus areas:
Education
Community Engagement
Breed Specific Retail Merchandise
My focus is to strategically develop and manage content for our two biggest focus areas, education and community engagement.
Overall Objectives
Provide engaging and informative content
Bring forth interactive community events
Lay out a seamless e-commerce experience
Maintain accessibility considerations
Always strive for continuous improvement
Main Objective
Our main objective is to establish and maintain trust within the community by promoting breed education.
RESEARCH
Questions & Considerations
How can Xolo Supply effectively deliver comprehensive and engaging educational content about Xolos, considering the varying levels of prior knowledge among users?
What features or activities can be implemented to encourage active participation and interaction within the Xolo community, fostering a sense of belonging and knowledge-sharing among the community?
What are the primary considerations for accessibility and inclusivity, ensuring that all users can equally benefit from the educational content, community engagement, and merch?
Overview of the Market
Pet supplies are a leading industry category in the United States, with sales of approximately 4.54 billion U.S. dollars and positive sales growth of 2.7%.
Its share of revenue also spread due to the “pet parenting” trend, in which pet owners treated their pets as family members and started supplying them with complementary products.
Motivations for buying pet supplies online are convenience, comfort, product information, and choice.
Getting to Know Our Competitors
Through our research and interview findings, we were able to get a list of our direct business competitors. These competitors are all pet supplies stores that have an online shopping website and are targeting the same target users that we are targeting.
I followed that up with a heuristic evaluation of our five competitors. We went through the websites of these competitors and tried to achieve certain tasks by acting as users. We then evaluated the competitors based on LEMEr’S heuristics.
I wrote down possible recommendations for each competitor in order to avoid their mistakes in our own design. Our aim here was to better know the rules of thumb for designing a pet supplies website.
Recommendations:
Clear and understandable buttons and icons
Provide 'Buy Now' feature
Show availability of products
Sufficient error management
Smooth UI
We determined our target users to be people who are responsible for buying dog supplies from pet stores. More specifically we needed people who live in the United States and either own or are planning to own Xolos.
Understanding the Challenge
Designing the Screener Survey
Goals:
Find user research subjects to interview
Better understand the basic preferences and pain points of our users
Identify business competitors
Questions:
7 qualitative questions
Qualification for interview criteria: Target users are those who are responsible for buying dog supplies from pet stores, live in the United States, and either own a Xolo or are planning to own a Xolo.
I prepared a survey with Google Forms and distributed it among multiple groups of Xolo owners on Facebook (via specific Facebook Groups) and Reddit. The purpose was to determine the basic ‘pain-points’ of pet owners when it comes to caring for their Xolos.
Direct Quotes from Users
“I love caring for my beloved Xoco, but when it comes to his skin I’m not always sure I know what I’m doing.”
“The dog soap I find online are not relevant for my dog’s specific needs because they are too general.”
“The biggest headache is figuring out if the information I'm getting is reliable.”
Findings
I asked myself what do our users want? Where do these wants stem from?
By understanding why our customers had these wants and needs, it increased our chances of making a truly valuable product. The number one problem our users were running into boiled all down to lack of education.
Our users had no accessible educational resources they trusted.
Prior to Xolo Supply, there failed to be any reliable resources for the community. Online platforms like Facebook groups were available for users to share information, but there was a lot of misinformation being shared which is ultimately harmful and dangerous for the breed.
Our users desperately wanted more educational content.
From indigenous mythical legends, to reliable in-depth breed information such as the history and breed standard: our users were hungry for any information. Given that the Xolo is such a rare breed, it's hard to find info, even on the vast internet we know today.
Affinity Mapping
Now that we have all the findings from the interviews, we started grouping these findings into different categories based on their information. After some reiterations on our affinity map, we were able to categorize the interview finding into 4 groups.
Breed Education
Shopping Struggles (breed specific needs)
Shopping Experience
Favorite Products
Personas
The results of my survey suggested that there were several types of users with diverse needs. The accumulation of the different insights and common patterns that came from the users’ answers helped me create three personas which are the manifestation of that data in a character.
Identifying The Problem
After completing all my research, it was finally time to get a clear grasp of the problem. We analyzed the findings we gleaned from both our user and business research and came to a conclusion.
A significant number of our users experience issues with accessing reliable information with regard to breed specific needs when shopping for dog products online. We decided that our response should deliver a place where customers can learn more about the Xoloitzcuintle breed, hairless dog needs, and understanding the quality of the items they purchase before purchasing them.
Our Response:
Xolo Supply, a trusted lifestyle brand dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Xoloitzcuintle breed.
Our mission:
To educate the public about the Xoloitzcuintle, advocate for the breed, foster a vibrant community, and create premium products.
Initially, our response when creating Xolo Supply was merchandise drive. Now we are proud to say we are more than merchandise. Our transformation from a merchandise-centric initiative to an educational and ethically-driven platform has been a deeply meaningful journey. We've embarked on a mission that surpasses any of our previous endeavors, dedicating ourselves to providing our community with information and practices that ultimately enhance the well-being of the Xoloitzcuintle.
Xolo Supply Goals:
Delivering Comprehensive and Engaging Educational Content:
Educational Content: Xolo Supply prioritizes creating educational content that caters to the varying levels of knowledge each users hold. By identifying the different personas: beginner, intermediate, and advanced users we were able to curate varying levels of information to accommodate these different levels of knowledge in order to address community needs.
Visual Content: I aim to use a mix of media, such as videos, infographics, and images, to make the content visually appealing and easier to comprehend.
Social Media Presence: To reinforce learning and allow users to test their knowledge, we utilize Instagram stories to quiz our followers, and offer rewards such as promotional discounts on Xolo Supply Merch to encourage participation and while prioritizing education.
User-Centric Approach: Xolo Supply is committed to addressing frequently asked questions as well as common misconceptions to establish and maintain trust within the community.
Encouraging Active Participation and Interaction within the Xolo Community:
Considerations for Accessibility and Inclusivity:
Collecting and Analyzing User Feedback for Continuous Improvement:
Feedback Surveys: I recommended implementing regular surveys to gather user feedback on the educational content, community engagement, and overall user experience.
Social Media Listening: We monitor social media platforms and encourage online discussions to understand how the community feels, what they want, and what they don't like, and identify potential areas of improvement.
Next Steps…
Charitable Initiatives:
In the future, we aim to allocate a portion of merchandise sales or profits to support Xoloitzcuintle charitable causes, such as breed rescue organizations or contributions to Indigenous coalitions.
Recognition and Awards:
We're looking into launching an annual appreciation event or awards program to recognize exceptional dogs, owners, and contributions to the breed's well-being.
