Students will engage with real pet owners to understand lifestyle needs and preferences, document evidence through interviews and empathy mapping, and surface assumptions that will guide the definition of their Perfect Pet design challenge.

Students will synthesize interview notes and empathy maps to identify patterns in user needs, then craft a focused How Might We statement and evidence-based design brief to guide their perfect pet genetic design.

Students will generate a wide range of evidence-based hybrid pet concepts grounded in user research and genetic principles, then narrow their ideas to 2–3 strong concepts supported by clear rationale and user-need alignment.

Students will build low- and medium-fidelity prototypes of their Perfect Pet designs, test them with peers acting as representative users, and revise their models and genetic justifications based on documented feedback.

Students will validate their refined Perfect Pet prototypes with a new user, synthesize final feedback, and present their evidence-based genetic designs to an authentic audience, clearly tracing how user research and iteration shaped their solution.