The Basic Methods of Pet Care

An interactive experience that helps people who are willing to adopt a pet.

Audience: Anyone who wants to adopt a pet

Responsibilities: Research, Instructional Design, Action Mapping (Needs Analysis), Storyboarding

Language: Turkish

Year: 2022

View the Project

The Challenge

Many people want to adopt an animal. There are many reasons for this decision, such as finding a best friend, saving a pet’s life, not being alone, having a stress-free life, etc. Also, there are proven benefits of keeping pets. For example, playing games with the animals releases serotonin and dopamine, so it helps you to relax and calm down.

After analyzing the adoption processes, I learned that many people do not have adequate knowledge about how they take care of pets at home; or they decide to gain knowledge after the adoption. However, different pets have different needs that we should know before adopting them.

Aim of the Project

The goal of this project is to help people who are willing to adopt a pet by explaining the crucial points about pet care. This project explains the benefits of knowing the routine life of pets such as cats, dogs and birds, explains the tips to strengthen communication with them, and most importantly, how to pet care at home.

Design Specifications

There are 4 modules in this training. The first module includes the general information about pet care and the other modules includes the specific information about each animal (cats, dogs, and birds). There is also information about how long each module will take and what materials it consists of (video or text-based materials).

Using a module structure helps learner to investigate the topics as small pieces. Therefore, creates a better understanding for each topic.

As you can see, only the first module is active, and the others are locked. Learners cannot pass the other modules unless they finish the previous one. This strategy helps learners to move on step by step and in an order. If the topic of your training doesn’t need to be followed in an order or if you want to provide learner autonomy, you do not need to unlock the other modules.

Here is an example of interactive pages. Since there are 3 subtopics, I divided the text into 3 pages and supported the text-based material with visual material. Each subtopic was supported with related visuals. When learners finish the reading, they will click the right arrow button to see the next subtopic. The use of this interactivity helps learners to understand each topic better and to be more engaged with the training.

Also, there are several video contents. If the content needs to be visualized and animated to a better understanding, using animations and videos are good choices to give the relevant information.

Here is another example for interactive pages. There were 2 subtopics, so I used two visuals on the screen. Learners can reach the relevant information by clicking the related visuals. There is also a directory message that informs learners to click the visuals to see the content.

After the learners click the first visual in Figure 6, they will see this pop-up screen. After they finished the text, they will click the “X” button and will click to the second visual.

If you have subtopics and you do not want to present them in different pages, using pop-up icons is an effective idea. Therefore, you can present the topics one-by-one but they will be still in the same page.

This is another example about the use of pop-ups. There were 6 different subtopics about cats. Therefore, using 6 different visuals might be seen complicated. Instead of using 6 different visuals, I decided to use different paws as pop-up icons. Thus, we have 6 sweet paws and the page looks more organized.

After learners completed each topic, they will see a green mark on the paws that means they read/watched each learning material. Considering the ARCS model, giving visual feedback for learners’ actions increase their satisfaction.

On this page, there is a living room environment that includes several materials related to needs of cats. I thought that it would be so boring to list these materials on an html page. Therefore, I decided to create an environment which we see these objects in their natural environment.

When we open this page, a directory pop-up comes and explains that we should find the cat-related materials by clicking them. Creating this kind of visual and interactive environment makes the acquired knowledge more permanent and makes learning more entertaining. Also, considering the ARCS model, this kind of activities takes learners’ attention and keep their attention in the learning content.

View the Project