Timeline
April - August 2022 (20 weeks)
Tools
Figma
Miro
Procreate
Adobe Illustrator, photoshop
My Role
Concept project for Google UX Design Professional Certificate
UX Research
Information Architecture
Visual & UI Design
Prototyping
-- OVERVIEW --
Busy pet owners are struggling to keep up with their pet’s daily needs
💡 Problem
For centuries, pets have been considered to be significant family members. Many owners want to prioritise their pet’s necessities and comfort, but in this busy modern lifestyle, we are profusely performing numerous roles and all the respective responsibilities can be challenging to upkeep.
This sparked the question - Can there be an easier way to manage our pets’ wellbeings?
According to a research by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) :
46% of pet owners use an app that sends health information straight to their veterinarians, and 40% use pet technology for several purposes like locating shelters for rescued animals after natural catastrophes. These numbers are projected to grow year over year.
💡 Solution
The possibility of executing essential tasks within the same app, catering towards 3 main flows:
My work process
-- WHITEPAPER RESEARCH INSIGHT --
👁🗨 Poor management and Excessive Oversight
Starting with white paper research, I began top narrow down the research topic of goals, motivation, and pain points - when I stumbled upon a disturbing statistic from FOUR PAWS International:
"Approximately 6.3 million companion animals are abandoned or given up to shelters nationwide each year, with the top 2 reasons being insufficient time management and lack of experience."
-- FINDINGS --
Meet the users
User Interviews
💭 Interviewees have higher mission completion rates when tasks are segregated by the specific roles they play
Major “positions” or life roles that individuals may adopt in their lifetime:
Although there are multiple ways to manage one's tasks and schedule, I proceeded to conduct interviews with 5 pet owners who constantly fail at keeping their pet-work-daily life balanced.
I’ve asked them questions below to find trends on the complications they face when having a pet, then organised the data through affinity mapping.
EXTENDED RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
1. Tell me about your typical day versus a busy day.
2. What challenges do you face in your pet’s feeding schedule?
3. What challenges do you face in your pet's need-to-excrete process?
4. Tell me about your positive and negative vet visitation experiences.
5. What is the most challenging aspect of owning a pet?
6. Tell me about your past management-related app experiences and thoughts.
7. How has your life differentiated before and after owning a pet?
Major insights
❌ Hardly any apps my interviewees used previously worked out due to a lack of functions and poor UI.
Based of the trends of my affinity map, there is a clear similarity that my potential users would prefer an app offering more than 1 primary function which could essentially shorten the time needed to perform an action.
Major insights found in the study include:
Competitive analysis
🔍 The competitions lack a MULTIFUNCTION aspect.
According to my research results, more than 90% of potential users heavily value app efficiency and vast functionality.
Keeping the above findings in mind, I analysed the 4 most popular apps surrounding this goal/management style. I found that all of them are limited to focusing solely on one function only. This then became my opportunity for the solution.
-- DESIGNS --
Sketching & Planning
Wireframes
-- TESTING & ITERATIONS --
Obstacles
⤵️ Setbacks + a new direction
In the beginning of the project I was very persistent on creating an all-in-one solution, aspiring to resolve everyone's problems in one-go, thus incorpoerated multiple independent functions together.
However, upon talking to a couple of engineers and thinking about the app -building process, I realized that managing this many system at once could possibly be more of a liability than a benefit, as cross -team and cross-company integrations can be intensely complex.
Hence, I have opt for a solution that would mainly focus on solving primary issues whilst working on additional future updates.
Improvisions
🔧 Major improvements in my design
-- FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES --
⏱ If I had more time...
During the entire design process, I continuously refined every detail of the app. But as a resolute worker, I feel like there is always space for ample opportunity and growth.
Anticipating improvements I would like to dig deeper into:
1. Adding a multilingual option
Attaining a global presence is vital to today's technology-rich market as countries are becoming more diverse. Apps and websites that target an international audience drive conversion rates and create long-lasting relationships with end users.
2. E-commerce feature for located stores
- The ability to purchase products online at selected stores at user-designated times
- Check if certain products are in stock to eliminate wasted trips
3. Data-syncing across devices
Developing the opportunity to allow usage on multiple devices, including features such as:
- Task management and alerts on smartwatches
- Pet training courses display on tablets and desktops
-- REFLECTIONS --
🌱 What I've learned:
As this was my first UX project, I am immensely interested in how user-centred research and design could target problems and potentially benefit the future of society. More than the actual output, however, I'm exceedingly excited about going through the entire UX process solo so I could see what utilizing this skill is actually like.
On that note, a few things I’ve learned:
1. Accepting trade-offs. During the design process, I would come across new research which led me to different directions and conclusions than I had before. At first, I was adamant about continuing with my original plan as I'd thought the time I used to do the work would be time wasted. I've come to a realisation that directing into newly available routes could possibly devise a better solution and even save more time.
2. Always keep what the users need in mind. I've realised during the process that I would drift off to what I think would be useful for the app and what design style I want. But the whole focal point of problem-solving should be the users and their problems. Being aware of this trait progressed my designs in different directions than I originally had and increased positive feedbacks from usability tests.
3. There are no bad ideas, just unsuitable ones. I would consider myself to be a perfectionist, and restarting "bad" designs is a constant action performed during any design process. I've eventually noticed how much time is wasted with every restart. I now work around the designs I see as unfit and only restart when really necessary. Sometimes it just takes a 30-minute walk or hot tea and a slice of cake for a new idea to magically pop up in your head.
4. Iterate and think of the problem as much as you can. As mentioned above, I have restarted the entire project many times - 4 whole times with 5 Figma file iterations and 3 different versions of the supplementary illustrations, to be exact. I’ve been so focused on exploring the different options to try to find the right solution for my pet-owner users, that I completely missed the WCAG standards. This was a huge lesson learned, I'll have a better sense to obey these rules next time.