The Tufts Dog Park is a nearly 60-acre expanse of farmland along the Westborough/Grafton line, located on Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. When the land is not being utilized for farming, it is open to the public for horse riding, biking, walking, and dog walking. In 2010, 5.3 acres were allotted as an off-leash area for pets to exercise and play. Dog owners are required to register with the Cummings School to use the dog park, so we partnered with Tufts to build a web app that would allow the community to easily register their pets.
The previous setup was entirely paper-based. Until this point, everything had been handled with a written sign-up form and a filing system. This left Tufts with no effective way to find users based on specific criteria or quickly access information.
More importantly, the park members weren’t able to see their pet registrations, renewal dates, or other important information about their park access. The accessibility of information proved to cause headaches for both the Tufts staff and registrants alike.
Users can sign up in no time and start adding pets to their membership. As a pet park, the application needed to process info about owners and their pets, too. Owners can add a new pet membership with pertinent info like name, gender, breed, vaccinations, etc.
Each pet registration is reviewed by Tufts and processed accordingly, depending on the pet’s characteristics and history. Now, Tufts has a simple and organized way to approve only appropriate pets into the park.
Notifications are essential within the Dog Park App, as they provide the user with the status of their pet registrations along with showcasing which pets are active, inactive or needing a renewal. This makes it incredibly easy for members to stay on top of their registrations.
Throughout each process of the dashboard, the user is greeted with the information they need and want, while behind the scenes, all the data is gathered in an organized fashion for the administration. For the first time, Tufts University can operate the park with the peace of mind that all the information they need is stored efficiently and accurately within this new tool.