PawSafe
An all-in-one app idea for pet owners who want an easy way to take care of their pet's diet.
Role
UX Designer & Product Designer
Timeline
80 hours
Project Overview
Tools
Figma/Figjam
Each year, an increasing number of pet food products hit the market, making the task of finding the best food brand challenging and overwhelming.
Being a new pet parent to two cats, I was determined to ensure I was providing the best diet and overall health for my pets. Yet, the journey proved to be more time-consuming than I anticipated.
I found myself with an excess of open tabs to sites online, all dedicated to sorting through reviews, ratings, and articles to determine the best food for my pets. This problem set me on a mission to build a tool that could aid the research's journey for new and current pet parents.
The Problem
Navigating the world of pet products is no walk in the park for owners. The sheer number of brands, cost variations, and quality levels turns decision-making into a puzzle.
The quest for products vetted by certified professionals adds an extra layer of complexity. As a result, pet owners often find themselves on a research journey, trying to unravel and decipher through link after link all with the intent to make the best choices for their furry companions.
Let’s solve it, with research!
In order to identify any possible solutions we needed to identify our objective, which involved building a mobile application designed to assist pet owners in making informed decisions when choosing pet food products.
How might we design a platform that empowers pet parents to efficiently identify the ideal food products aligning with both their and their pets' specific needs?
Research & Discovery
Competitive Analysis
Who might our competitors be ?
Prior to jumping into the interviews, I aimed to grasp the existing online tools catering to pet owners like me seeking deeper insights on available products and inspiration for mobile tools out there.
User Interviews
Let’s dive deeper
In facing challenges during my pursuit of identifying a high-quality pet food brand, my intention was to explore common difficulties among fellow pet owners and acquire any additional insights available.
I decided to immerse myself in the research, I began by curating a set of questions specifically designed for a moderated user interview.
My aim was to engage with participants, both newcomers and seasoned pet parents with either dogs or cats, in order to gain valuable insights for an enhanced user experience.
I was successful in recruiting a total of 5 participants, comprising of 2 new pet parents and 3 experienced ones.
Digging through our research
Affinity Mapping
In every interview, distinct patterns emerged as I engaged with each participant.
My focus was on thoroughly documenting each identified pain point, prompting me to categorize key insights from each interview. This process allowed me to formulate individual insight statements, summarizing pain points for pet' parents journey to deciding their pets diet.
Capturing the feedback
Synthesizing the data
Key Findings
Addressing these pain points in our solutions.
Requirements based on needs. Pet owners all have different requirements, some adhere to a budget, others to pets diet, and others to credibility of a product
Deceptive Marketing. Lack of transparency on food products, pet parents need digestible information
Time Consuming. Users browse thorough multiple websites for reviews and comparison
Revealing our next lead
Prioritization Matrix
Now that I had broken down our research into individual insights, my aim was to transform these insights into potential problem statements, each rated on a scale of 5 based on the level of agreement or similarity among users.
Once I had formulated these problem statements, the next step was to pinpoint our central focus. Although various problem statements emerged from our research, I sought to prioritize those with higher score rating as an insight and issues that stood out most based on design system. To achieve this, I constructed a prioritization matrix to guide the identification of potential solutions.
Brainstorming Ideas
With all the insights gathered and post-synthesis, my attention remained on the following problem statement:
Define
I’d like to explore ways to assist active pet owners in both saving time and effectively navigating the pet food market that takes into consideration their requirements and pets’ needs.
From conducting thorough research to meticulous analysis, every step paved the way for the revelation of the ideal solution! An app that seeks to centralize information in one place for pet parents.
Offering transparency regarding the labeling of pet food brands
Users will have the ability to scan or search for a product instantly
Compare and contrast pet food options
Read through digestible information with visual breakdowns
Keep pet parents up to date with recalls and warning
Aligning with the needs and expectations of our users
User Persona
Developing a persona for our proposed solution would enable me to stay centered on the insights and findings gathered from my user research. I aimed to maintain a clear focus on the target audience for this mobile application, ensuring that the identified problem was effectively addressed.
Lets meet Kayla and Brian
Site Map
Equipped with our solution, the next step was to initiate the development of a structured framework for idea in mind.
This involved organizing the information we aimed to present in the mobile app for our users, and creating a site map to guide the process.
User Flow
Designing the users journey
With our structure in hand and our users personas in mind, I decided to begin depicting the complete paths our users would take when utilizing the product. Including an error state path, alternative path and a happy path a user would take for the a scenario like the the following:
Scenario: When at their local pet store and seeking additional details about a pet food brand, the user will leverage the scan feature of the mobile app. The goal is to obtain more information on a specific dog food brand, ensuring that it doesn't contain the particular ingredient to which their dog is sensitive.
Design
Low Fidelity Wireframes
With the user flows in mind, it was time to begin brainstorming the visual for our concept. I wanted to ensure my early concepts covered potential task flow for our prototyping.
Developing our brand
Branding & UI Style Guide
Having crafted early concepts, I opted to focus on the creation of a logo and branding experience before delving into the high-fidelity stage. The aim was to remain centered the brand adhered to our user research, user personas, and solution.
High Fidelity Wireframes
With our logo and UI Style Guide identified it was time to apply some color and life to our wireframes and begin developing our high fidelity screens to prep for our task flows in mind.
Onboarding Flow
Dashboard, Search, History, Profile, Scan page
Product Details page
Test & Iterate
Conscious of my timeline, I concentrated on developing four user flows for our prototype, intending to test them in a moderated usability test. Each flow was chosen based on the belief that it would provide optimal insights and value for a minimum viable product (MVP).
A total of 5 participant were involved, conducted remotely in which each session a user was presented with scenario to imagine and a task to complete.
Prototyping
Flow 1: Complete Onboarding and customize home page feed using filter tags
Flow 2: is to utilize the Paw Safe app to scan the item or perform a search. The read the reviews and score given on the product
Flow 3: Navigate to the history page to find last scanned item
Flow 4: Navigate to find your favorited items
Success Metrics & Prioritizing Revisions
The moment had come to record and synthesize the feedback received from each usability test, evaluating the success of each individual task and extracting the valuable insights appreciated by users. Here are some of those highlights:
75%
Task Completion
Users completed Flow 1 (Onboarding), Flow 3 and Flow 4
Now, the focus shifts to identifying what didn't work.
It's crucial to maintain a centralized approach with the goal of designing a tool that aligns with our users' needs and expectations, as revealed in our user research stage. Keeping this objective in mind, I documented the confusions encountered in each flow by our testers and noted design mistakes.
100%
Color & Brand Validation
A unanimous preference for color palette choices and branding was valued.
Identifying our next steps through a priorities revision of our findings
The Final MVP
PawSafe: Your Pet’s Health, Our Priority
Reflection Time
The Solution
This application concept serves as a one-stop tool for pet owners, addressing their concerns about their pet's diet and overall well-being. By offering a user-friendly interface and valuable information, it caters to individuals seeking efficient solutions to meet their animals' nutritional needs and care.
Why this concept works ?
Having a product like this could positively help new and current pet parents navigate the world of pet food brands efficiently. Users benefit from the simplification of pet food choices through a user friendly UI, receiving tailored recommendations and nutritional guidance, ultimately contributing to improved pet health and well-being through a user-friendly application.
How it can help a potential business and users ?
For businesses, this can offers opportunities for collaboration with pet food suppliers, and ultimately build trust with its audience by offering more transparency to the world on pet food brands quality and ingredients.
Lessons Learned
Addressing assumptions and prioritization
It is important to recognize one’s assumptions and not let it lead you towards a design that may not be viable. It is important to dissect and learn from the research to lead you to designing a product of value and addresses the pain points at hand of a pet owners journey.
In addition, I learned it was important to prioritize my time based on the constraint i had at hand trusting the process is necessary to avoid being kept in a loop of never ending confusion or misdirecting.
Next Steps
If time would allow, I would like to delve deeper into the research's of conducing an additional usability test to learn about areas I was not able to touch on in detail. overall the project itself was a rewarding expereince to be apart of because it was centralized around a topic I strongly support as a pet owner.