Thoroughbase

01

Overview

A thoroughbred racehorse generates a remarkable amount of data: vet visits, X-rays, race results, bloodlines, treatment plans and, more and more, live readings from RFID chips and wearable sensors. Today that information is scattered across paper files, vet portals, track systems and third-party apps, and the people who care for a horse each need a different slice of it.

Thoroughbase is a concept for a mobile-first “virtual barn.” It links everything known about a horse to the RFID chip already implanted in its neck, pulls in wearable data automatically, and shows owners, trainers, managers and foremen only what’s relevant to their role.

02

The challenge

How might we give everyone in a racing barn one trustworthy source of truth for each horse, without overwhelming them or exposing data they shouldn’t see?

Three tensions shaped the problem from day one:

• Completeness vs. focus. The goal is to hold all of a horse’s information, but a foreman at 5 a.m. needs one or two things, fast.
• Connected vs. private. Integrating chips and wearables makes data effortless to capture, and makes permissions essential. Medical and financial records are sensitive.
• Serious vs. delightful. The brief asked for something that feels “almost like a game, where the horse is the sim,” while still handling medical history with the gravity it deserves.

03

Objectives

04

Research approach

Because this began as a concept, I front-loaded the research I could do without a client, and designed the studies I’d run next with real barn teams.

05

What desk research told me

RFID in horse racing typically works on two layers:

• Passive microchips implanted in the horse’s neck carry a unique ID.
• Active sensors on equipment, such as saddle cloths, track identification, speed, position and safety metrics.

Readers placed around a track enable precise automated timing, fraud prevention and real-time monitoring of 40+ horses at once. Meanwhile, a growing category of equine wearables works like a fitness tracker for horses, capturing heart rate, temperature, activity and recovery.

The opportunity wasn’t a lack of data. It was the lack of one place, organized around the horse, that ties these streams together. That became the core of the concept:

06

Who uses it

Mapping the roles in a barn turned a vague “permissions” requirement into a concrete access model. This matrix became the backbone of the Team screen.

Proto-personas

These are hypotheses, not research findings. Each one names an assumption I’d validate in the field.

Jobs to be done

• When a horse comes in from morning works, I want to log how it went in seconds, so the trainer sees it before deciding on afternoon care.
• When the vet updates a treatment plan, I want everyone assigned to that horse to see the change, so no one follows yesterday’s instructions.
• When I scan an unfamiliar horse, I want its identity and current status confirmed instantly, so I know I have the right animal.
• When I’m reviewing my investment, I want performance and health in one summary, so I can make decisions without chasing updates.

07

Design principles

08

The prototype

I turned the brief into a high-fidelity, mobile-first prototype with Figma Make, then explored it screen by screen. Partner device names in the prototype, like EquiTrack Pro and HorseVital Plus, are placeholders.

09

Heuristic review: what I’d fix next

AI gets you to a testable artifact fast, but it doesn’t do the judgment for you. I reviewed the generated prototype against Nielsen’s usability heuristics. These issues are real, and they set the agenda for the next iteration.

10

Validation plan

The next step is getting this in front of the people who’d use it. Each study maps back to an assumption above.

Success measures I’d track

These are targets to validate, not results:

• Time from scan to the right horse’s profile: about 3 seconds
• Foreman logs daily status in under 30 seconds
• Trainers find the latest treatment note in one tap from the horse profile
• Zero permission leaks across role-based test scenarios
• Daily active use by barn staff, not just at vet visits

11

Reflection

Thoroughbase let me practice the part of UX I love most: turning an ambitious brief into clear, testable bets. AI prototyping got me from idea to an interactive app in a fraction of the usual time. That speed is only valuable if research decides what’s worth building, so the real work starts with listening to the people in the barn.