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Paw-ticipatory Design
What is "Paw-ticipatory" Design?
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Paw-ticipatory Design is a User Experience (UX) Design curriculum to better understand ​your pets' senses and experiences, and to create a project that enriches some aspect of your pet's life.

Paw-ticipatory Design engages youth and their pets in a multi-week co-design project that empowers participants to create a project that is truly designed with their pet, for ​their pet.
The Paw-ticipatory Design Process
Paw-ticipatory Design is a cyclic process of various User Experience (UX) Design methods:
  1. Engaging & Understanding (students conduct research investigations to learn about their pet),
  2. Designing & Prototyping (students create low- and high-fidelity prototypes of their design ideas), and
  3. Testing & Evaluation (students evaluate their prototypes with their pet to identify areas for improvement).

Students engage with these practices iteratively to revise and test new designs, and identify further research questions about their pets.
Curriculum Structure & Timeline
We have structured this as a 2-week curriculum, however this timeline can be shortened or extended. It is essential that this curriculum heavily situates the investigation, design, and testing work within the home, but in-class group activities can serve to supplement these in either a virtual or in-person setting.

Students spend the first week Engaging & Understanding their pets. These activities include planning and carrying out investigations to understand their pets' senses and behaviors, as well as building on prior knowledge they have of their pets. Specific activities in this unit involve using augmented reality to explore the world with pets' color perception, tracking pets' behaviors throughout the day, and designing other investigations to answer scientific questions about pets.

In the second week, students design, build, and evaluate a project that enriches some aspect of their pet's life. These projects build on the knowledge students developed through Engaging & Understanding, and engage them in the Designing & Prototyping and Testing & Evaluation practices of UX Design. 
Programming and Physical Computing Activities (Optional)
This curriculum presents the opportunity to integrate programming and physical computing into the second week design project. While these subjects are optional for Paw-ticipatory Design, we have included additional activities and tutorials for several computational pet toys and caretaking supplies (ex. an automated pet feeder).

If you would like to integrate computing into this curriculum, we recommend introducing students to basic micro:bit tutorials prior to starting the curriculum (or at least prior to starting their design projects). There is also the potential to integrate computation into the Engaging & Understanding portion of the camp (i.e. by collecting sensor and environmental data), however, we have not explored this or developed lesson plans regarding this.
Who is this guide for?
This guide is for educators (informal/formal), parents and legal guardians, self-directed students (ages 13-18) who want to run a fully remote, or hybrid remote and in-person curriculum.

If you would like to facilitate or complete the Paw-ticipatory Design curriculum, view the Getting Started section below.

Getting Started
Required materials
For the in-class modules and at-home activities students need:
  • Smartphone
  • Snapchat
  • Computer
  • Google Account
  • Our Google Slides activities and templates
  • Basic craft materials (optional)​​
For the optional computing activities students need:
  • A computer that can access http://microbit.makecode.com/
  • A micro:bit and a micro USB cable to connect to your computer
  • Alligator clips
  • Servo
  • Lithium battery
Lesson plans, templates, & other resources
Each in-class module has an at-home counterpart. Some of the in-class modules involve brainstorming prior to their at-home assignment, and some of the in-class modules reflect on the at-home assignment done prior.
The computing activities are optional and can be weaved into the in-class modules and at-home activities.
Please reach out to cuboulderpetproject@gmail.com if you have questions.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1736051