Life is better with pets

4 weeks 120+hrs
Feb to March 2022
UX/UI designer
Research, visual design, UI design, usability testing

Background

The pet care industry is expanding rapidly by raising empathy toward pets, that led to increased adoption. A lot of my friends have adopted pets in the past few years . Whenever my friends take a holiday or have business trips, they will need to ask other people to take care of their pets to assure their pets are well-taken care of and provide a thriving environment.

Problem

Scattered pet information across multiple mediums and apps makes it complicated for the pet owner and caretaker to manage or share information when necessary. These factors can lead to the wrong treatment or misunderstanding and affect the pet's health.

Scope and Focus

This mobile app aims to help pet users easily record their pets' data and health status by providing reminders for upcoming tasks and recording pet vaccination and veterinary visits. This sufficient information will be able to share for both medical use and the person who takes care of your pet when the owner is away.

Overview

Users can check pet profiles and record details, set up reminders and invite other caretakers to complete the task for pets.
DISCOVER
→
DEFINE
→
IDEATION
→
IMPLEMENTATION
→
Reflection

DISCOVER

Research

A significantly increase in adoption during pandemic altered the pet market

From 2015 to 2020, the worldwide relative search volume (RSV) for dog and cat adoption peaked in April 2020. These were significantly higher than the 5-year worldwide RSV average for a pet. It shows adoption rate raised during the pandemic, but it also points to one problem:
How would pet owners manage to take care of their pets after backing to post-pandemic life?

Most competitors provide everything but not simple to navigate11 pets app has everything you can think of pets, but the navigation and information architecture are not easy to use. The products like Pawprint and Pet care diary can share information with other people but need to pay

User Research

Information provided to anyone involved

I conducted five zoom call interviews with participants who have pets and have someone close who can help them take care of the pets. Participants communicate with other caretakers through communication apps, verbal conversation or notepads.

The user interview

Searching between multiple apps
80% of participants get information about pets across mediums and apps.

Inconsistent pet information
40% of participants experienced wrong information passed from the previous pet owner/caretakers.

Often forget the paper medical card
60% of participants often forget their medical cards when bringing the pet to the veterinary.

Project Goal

All you need in one app

I prioritised some significant aspects of a successful pet marketplace app and the insight from the user interview, finding the essential factors I could focus on:

ℹ️ Offer Sufficient Information

A place can find all the information and crucial details regarding the pet with a single tap. All information that pet parents need to know before getting and caring a pet.

📱 All digital health records of your pet at one place

Having a medical history is quite crucial. A pet healthcare mobile app keeps all reports of the previous shots, sickness, medications, or when their next veterinary visit is due.

👥 Interact with others

The functionality allows pet parents and caretakers can communicate and get the same pet's information without going through other communication apps.

DEFINE

Persona

Pet lover, but not have much time to be with pets.

There are many types of pet parents. I created a persona, Steven, who represents my target user who loves pets but lacks organisation skills and has other people helping him take care of his pet when he is away.

Persona

HMW & User Journey

How might we help Steve and the other caretakers to manage multiple pets’ tasks and schedules

I did a breakdown of Steven's daily life to uncover the frustrating and uncertain moments by using the user journey and HMW statements to brainstorm some ideas to solve Steven's frustrations.

Check full size HMW deliverable →

Information Architect

Set up each screen on how to interact with others


I created an app map to set up a flow of using this application. I added an onboarding process by considering introducing the user to the app.
Used the task flow to see how users would reach a specific goal. After setting up the two main tasks, I created a user flow with the user decision nod in the task. These are the scenes:
‍

App map
the task flow

Wireframe

Explore more possibilities for pages interaction

I planned out a simple low-fidelity wireframe to develop the visual hierarchy and UI requirement for the key screens:Onboarding, Home page, Add reminder, Pet profile and Invited caretakers.

IDEATION

Style Tile & UI Kit

Accompany, Health and Happiness

I created the UI kits for the brand and used the round shape to reduce the sharpness and distance to present the pets as having a curved shape. The orange symbolises happiness and energising vibe. Blue and the rest of the natural colours indicate health and safety.

Check full size UI Kits→

High-Fidelity Wireframe

Selected Screens

Following the material design guideline with the UI kits I created, I built the high-fidelity wireframe for the usability test.

Onboarding

To increase  the number of users to sign up for the account, I decided to make an onboarding process to help first-time users learn about the features of this app.

Reminders

Users can set up an alarm for the task they would like to be reminded of, also they can set the frequency of the reminder alarm. These tasks will show on the home page as a task .

Pet profile

The pet profile includes photos, basic details and other categories like vaccination, medical and hygiene that users can record as part of their pet’s health status.

Invite caretakers

Pet owners can invite other caretakers to manage the task together. They can get the same up to date information at the same time.

Implementation

Usability Test

Make it like real for testing

I  used Figma to build the prototype and conduct the test on 5 participants to validate the design and idea I have been working on. These are the test objectives:

  • The acknowledgement of information on the onboarding process
  • The accessibility of adding a pet profile
  • The architecture information hierarchy on the home page information
  • The architecture information hierarchy on the pet profile
  • The accessibility of inviting a pet caretaker
See the prototype ➡

Usability test finding takeaways

👍 Strength

  • 4 out of 5 participants liked the user interface and said it was clean, intuitive and easy to use.
  • 2 out of 5 participants found the vaccine card very useful without looking for a physical medical card when they visit the veterinary.
  • 2 out of 5 participants liked the idea that their partner also can edit the task and share the information.

😕 Confusion

  • Rather than the historical record, I would like to record my pets’ habits and preferences.
  • Looking for “adding reminders” on the task section on the homepage.
  • Invitation by QR code is not convenient when the caretaker is not around.

Iteration

Customised details benefits different type of owners

After conducting usability tests, I modified the wireframes to address the confusion and frustration of users with the annotations below.

Reflection

What have I learned?

  • I've learned how to stand on and be able to express my design ideas when I get feedback and different opinions from other designers. I will absorb and obtain valuable feedback, turn it into power and push my design to further.

What is next?

  • I’ll try to customise the feature on the dashboard so that users can manage the information related to their concern.
  • If I had more time, I would focus on designing the home page to distinguish and interact between the owner and the pet caretakers.

These are my furry family, the cat I have in Ireland and the dog I have in Taiwan!

Back to the top⬆

More projects

Formosa
Responsive Web
Ryanair website
New feature