Empathize and Define
Ferdinand and his owner: Overview
Ferdinand from the movie Ferdinand is a beautiful black angus bull from Spain. He has big horns that he uses to protect both themselves and their herds from dangerous predators. Cattle themselves are very low maintenance animals. You’ll usually see them walking around the field protecting the female cattle. They spend most of their day out in the fields or in the barn eating. During mating season or when the female cattle are in heat, the cattle ranchers will separate the females from the males using fencing and overhead barns. They make sure they get the right amount of food and get they’re hooves trimmed on the daily. One thing you must know about cattle is that they aren’t all “cows”. Cattles represents heifers (females that haven’t given birth), cows (females that have given birth), steers (castrated males) and bulls (uncastrated males). Even though steers can’t be used for breeding, they often sell them to kids in agriculture groups like 4H and FFA. His owner on the other hand is not an animal, he’s a human just like me and you. His native language is Spanish since they live in Madrid. It’s hard for Ferdinand’s owner to find a female to breed with because his breeder doesn’t have enough information on what cattle around his area are available to breed with.
One of the main problems breeders have in the agriculture industry is picking the proper bull to breeder their cows and heifers to. They look for certain breeds and characteristics that match their females. The solution they are looking for is 1, to make a very nice calf and 2, not cause the female too much stress during their pregnancy. Therefore my “Cattle Lovers” app will help breeders look at different bulls around the state or nation that has a list of characteristics both pros and cons that the bull has and what breed they are. They can swipe left on the bulls they like and right on the bulls they don’t like. The bulls they pick then go into a file within the app and shows where the bull is, how long it takes to be there and how much it is for a vile of their sperm if you can’t drive over to the bull. This app helps have a visual of the bull they’re looking at, see what characteristics they bring to the table and shows the price range the bull is.
Ideate, Prototype, and Test
The problem I am choosing for the app is finding the perfect mate for breed with. My solution for this for this problem I will create an app that helps bulls, cows and heifers find their perfect mate. One way an app can help is by creating a love app that helps find the perfect match for cattle. Another solution could be a tool guide on how to talk to female cattle and how to make them fall in love with you. Or another app solution you can use is by using a GPS app that shows where cattle are around, and they can take matters into their own hands. The app solution I’ll be focusing on is the dating app version.
This app will be called “Cattle Lovers” and will have a detailed description about each bovine that creates an account, showing off their characteristics, how old they are, for females it’ll say if they’re cows or heifers, and for males it’ll say how big they are body wise when they were born. It’ll also have a photo of the bovine with a description so that the cattle know which what characteristics go to which bovine. They can swipe left on the bulls they like and right on the bulls they don’t like if it’s a female on the app and vice versa if a male is using the app. The ones picked then go into a file within the app and shows a GPS location on where that bovine is, how long it takes to be there and whether or not they matched with you. Once there is a match between a bull and female bovine, they will be able to message each other and get to know each other now before meeting in person. (The prototype for this app can be found in the other attachment).
I talked to my friend about it who’s majoring in animal science and has worked with cattle in the past and she thought it was a very fun, imaginative, and cute idea on how to breed cattle. She gave me some extra things to put into my information of the male cattle on this app like their birth weight so that heifers (female cattle that haven’t had calves before) have a thought of how big their calf will be if they end up with that bull. She also liked how the app is similar to the ones we use to find people we’re attractive to.
Reflection
While working on this project I never realized how much the app itself could impact the breeding industry of cattle in real life. When you put it into consideration, the cattle industry would have tons of good-looking calves and could make a good amount of money off of them especially if they sell them to children in FFA or 4H. Growing up I was a part of the FFA program and was in a animal science class while in high school. We did a segment on how to breed cattle and the process was actually very interesting and very detail oriented. They had to look at birthing weight, what breed the bovines were and if they were purebreds or not (yes purebred cattle are a thing) and for the meat industry in particular how much of the bovine was meat and how much of it was fat. The design thinking process behind this app can aid cattle breeders around the world by giving them less stress about what bull is best for their females and vice versa. The one thing the design thinking processes could hinder is the face-to-face connection between the breeders since everything would be done online and could bring out some false advertising of cattle and just be trying to take the breeders money.