UX Case Study: PetCare App
As part of my User Experience (UX) Design Immersive in General Assembly, I had done UX research on the theme of pet care as part of my project to get myself started in UX design.
In this retrospective post, I would like to share my growth during the first 2 weeks of absorbing the content of the course of study. Please feel free to reach out to me on my Linkedin for any feedback.
For the start, I am not a pet owner myself. Thus, when the topic was presented to me, I told myself that this will be an insightful experience for me. As the saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.
Introduction
As the current pet care industry is falling behind in digitalising, PetCare aims to assist users to alleviate stress in concern to emergency care.
Problem
Being a non-pet owner, it was hard for me to think of any pain points for the audience. However, it also allows me to be unbiased in my research. For a start, I interviewed a classmate of mine with some general questions. From there, I started to plan my framing questions.
Opening Interview Questions
- How many pets do you own currently and had owned before? What pets are they?
- How is the pet being taken care of? (Alone or with family/partners)
- What are the issues you face with?
- Could you tell me the last time your pet fell ill?
- For your pet items/ necessities, where do you often buy them from?
- Have you used any applications for pets before? If any, what did you use? If not, have you heard of any?
After interviewing 5 users, affinity mapping is done thru FigJam.
From the affinity mapping, 2 “I” statements were created.
- I had difficulties when wanting to visit a vet.
- I visit the vet more than once due to pet complications.
Problem Definition
With the above “I” statements, the problem statements were created below.
How users can know:
i. the location of an appropriate vet so that they can find the vet during urgent cases and
ii. the cost of a vet so that they can seek pet treatments with fewer frustrations.
How Might We (HMW) statements were then ensued with:
i. HMW allow pet owners to find vets nearby
ii. HMW allow pet owners to book an appointment before their visit
iii. HMW let pet owners view the price range
Hence, the goal of the project was to design an application for pet owners to find and book vets in their vicinity with crucial information like location and cost.
User Persona
After gathering various input from the user interviews and a deep analysis of the problem, Kimberly Jones fitted perfectly as a lovely dog parent.
A storyboard and user journey map were combined to illustrate Kimberly Jones’s processes, needs, and emotional state across their interactions and relationships to satisfy a need. The journey map also allows the writer to identify the touchpoints and areas of focus.
Through the user journey map, Kimberly’s pet dog was experiencing an unusual discomfort. Hence, Kimberly wished to be able to find a vet in her vicinity as her dog got aggressive and stressed during their journey to their usual vet. With the various contradicting information online, Kimberly was also frustrated and stressed about her pet dog’s situation.
Develop Test
After identifying the areas of concern, an user flow was sketched out to check if it related to the problem statements.
A happy path (fastest) was also sketched out to look for opportunities to minimise human touches.
For the start, a Low-Fi prototype was started to check on the feasibility of the user flow and the problem statement.
Following a simple review of a greyscale prototype, a higher fidelity prototype ensued to extend my knowledge of Figma.
Below shows a walkthrough of the prototype that I created.
Future Plans
- Conduct another round of usability testing to validate if the pain points have been addressed.
- Add more features and flexibility backed by research.
- Continue to adopt a “Growth Mindset” for continuous improvement.
Reflection
What went right or wrong, and what was unexpected?
Initially, I wanted to start with a feed feature, a community-like Instagram feature. During the usability test, all of my testers had difficulty locating the map feature (which is my solution for this project). Upon serious consideration, I scrapped the feed part and proceed with showcasing the main feature directly for my prototype.
During the presentation, I could have been more detailed in my affinity mapping slides and told the audience about the statements that I wish to focus on. Also, for the user journey, I could have focused on 3 points for elaboration to have the audience empathise with the user persona. Lastly, as icons can be misleading, it would be better to supplement them with text as well.
What went right could be trying to be as direct as possible and solving the main problem with as few human interactions as possible. Given pet owners' stress, this would be an ideal solution.
What did you learn, and what might you do better?
I learnt from others that I could do a walkthrough of my prototype. This surely will prepare me for my presentation more. As often, nervousness may lead us to forget the good points of our product. Thus, I feel that better preparation will surely aid me in future.
In conclusion,
This project had been very insightful to kickstart me in the UX design process and gave me a glimpse of the outlook of the industry. I would like to extend my first (and definitely not the last) thanks to the instructional team, Wilson, Daniel and Qi Jie, for the guidance and feedback. I am also not forgetting the UXDI 41 classmates (I am too shy now to mention all of your names) for the constructive feedback, especially during the usability test, which has greatly improved my project.
For the next 10 weeks, let’s continue to grow together.
