SIT! A Pet Caregiving Application
Role: UX Designer, UI Designer
Date: July 2022
Team: Curtis Knecht
Tools: Figma, Whimsical
Overview:
While pet sitting for friends I noticed a series of Google Docs, handwritten pages, and spreadsheets to manage pet information. Users need a centralized place to manage all information on their pet that is easy to keep up to date and share with anyone that is caring for their pet.
Project Goals:
1: Create an application that allows pet parents to store information about the health of their pets.
2: Allow the user to share information that is important when caring for their pets.
3: Create a user interface that allows the pet parent OR the caregiver to access information in a way that is pertinent to their role.
4: Ensure the pet parent is able to communicate with the caregiver all information necessary for pet/house sitting while the pet parent is away.
Design Process:
I started by following a Lean, Human-Centered Thinking Process to ensure my decisions are backed by research and user feedback.
Empathize:
Research:
To start the research process, I looked into what applications are currently on the market for this type of information to verify that I wasn’t creating a redundant product.
Preliminary Comparative Research:
Ultimately what was discovered is that applications currently available are to find paid pet sitters. There are no applications to support pet parents that have friends and family care for their pets. Just because someone is a family member or friend, doesn’t mean they know everything about your pet.
Research Plan:
The goal is to find out what information pet parents manage for their pets, how they manage it currently, and how stress can be reduced when having someone pet sit.
Research Objectives:
Research Goal:
1. Identify what data users need to store on their pets.
2. Identify the optimal way to store and share data for users.
3. Discover how a user can benefit from a centralized data hub for their pet.
Research Questions:
1. Do users have a lot of data on their pets?
2. Do users currently see challenges sharing data when pet sitters are in their homes?
3. Will users feel confident inputting their pet data into an application and sharing it with a pet sitter?
User Interviews:
Participant Information:
Age: The participants ranged in age from mid-thirties to mid-fifties.
Occupation: Participants had a variety of occupations that require different care needs for pets. None currently are required to regularly travel for work.
Location: They are located around the country; New York, Minnesota, Ohio, and Florida.
Pets: The participants had either cats or dogs as pets.
Summary:
Seven pet parents were interviewed about their pet healthcare information, storage of that information, and experiences with caregivers. All participants currently use a manual method of storing pet health data. All participants rely on outside pet caregiving while away. All participants feel stressed or anxious while away due to pet care concerns.
Needs:
• All participants need a reliable method of storing pet healthcare and veterinary information.
• All participants need an easy method of sharing pet healthcare and veterinary information.
• Most participants need an easy way to set reminders for themselves or their pets.
Wants:
• Most participants rely on friends and family, so an easy way to share household information would be helpful.
• Participants want an easy way to send and receive updates on their pet care.
• An easy interface to upload documents.
Frustrations:
• Paper data storage is easily misplaced or destroyed and needs to be re-written or updated consistently for each trip.
• Outside caregivers need pet information but also information for the caregiver themselves to stay and manage the household.
• Pets are like family so their information should not be treated as that of property.
User Persona:
For this project, two personas were created, one for each side of the application.
Pet Parent: Dana is a busy pet mom that often needs to find care due to a shifting schedule at work. She lives in Brooklyn and has a home in Hudson. She travels between the two homes with her dog Bo.
Pet Caregiver: Becky loves animals and cares for her friend’s pets often. Being in Manhattan, she has a lot of ground she travels and needs to keep a lot of appointments and information straight.
Define:
Problem Statement:
Pet owners, known as pet parents, need but do not currently have, a centralized place to store pet data for personal use and pet sitters that are not paid strangers.
Identify Needs:
Compiling a list of features that users want and need, the application needs to be a combination of applications.
Prioritize Needs:
Top Priority:
The top priority is the ability to store and update information for the pets, along with a quick way to share that information with the pet caregivers.
Secondary Priorities:
A calendar and appointment tracker will allow the users, both parents, and caregivers, to manage their time and the needs of their pets.
A way to share information about the household with caregivers is important to pet parents and should be integrated with other information portals.
Nice to Have:
A newsfeed to quickly check in with pets and see how things are going would be helpful to remove the need for texting and email updates.
Ideate:
Site Map:
Focusing on learnability and usability, the model for this application came from a number of popular social websites. Focusing on footer navigation and a hamburger menu, 4 main branches were designed with the information storage being in the hamburger menu. Knowing there are two sides to the application, there are two branches of the site map with areas focused on that user’s needs.
User Flow:
To fully understand and focus on the user’s path, the User Flow for both sides of the application was created. The Pet Parent is on the left and the Caregiver on the right. Both have very consistent flows, but the Caregiver is mostly read-only as they will not be able to edit pet information.
Task Flow:
The Task Flow was created to solve the problem our user, Dana, has. She needs to be able to check in to confirm her pet has received its allergy medication while she is away. To do this she needs to be able to set the reminder, assign it to her caregiver, and see the confirmation the caregiver has completed it.
Sketches:
The sketches were drawn with a focus on creating clear pages that are needed to ensure the user gets the information stored and shared as needed.
Wireframes:
Creating responsive wireframes allowed a smooth and effective prototype design. These were based on the comparative research completed earlier in the process.
Prototype:
Style and Branding:
Creating branding for a pet sitting application was a fun challenge. Starting with a mood board, the focus became fun but functional. A little pet humor was thrown in here and there and it all came together.
Logo:
The core inspiration was a beloved pet Shadow. With him at the center and a multitude of other pet iconography and silhouettes, the logo was created to encompass a variety of pets in a pleasing tableau. The font for the name is Asset and was chosen for its thick and round appearance. The ‘I’ was slightly adjusted and a pawprint was added to the exclamation point to complete this logo.
The color palette was focused on being safe and peaceful, so blues and greys were the core focus.
Color
Iconography and Typography:
The iconography was chosen to be outlined and rounded. The typography was chosen for a similar, comfortable feel.
High-Fidelity Mockups:
Figma was used to create high-fidelity mockups for the prototype. There are the two clear branches for the prototype that allow the user to experience either the Parent or the Caregiver flow.
Clickable Prototype:
The screens were used to create a clickable prototype with Figma that was used for the following usability testing.
Test:
Usability Testing:
The usability testing was conducted over Zoom with the Figma prototype software. Users were recruited that are Pet Parents and also Caregivers for other people’s pets. There was an opportunity to test both users flows to try the application.
Results:
There were five participants in the first usability test. There was a mix of feedback that was incorporated into this affinity map.
Prioritizing Needs:
Assessing the needs notated in the affinity map, they were placed in a priority matrix to ensure maximum return on investment.
1. Add a tutorial flow for a new user.
2. Adjust the reminders to allow for completion and a quick view of the events.
3. Add color coding to the calendar dates.
4. Adjust the flow and edit the user/pet page redundancy and make an easier flow for the user.
5. Rename and redesign the Caregiver Page to delineate between the Pet home notes and the caregiver information.
6. Create the Settings page for users to see.
7. Create an obvious visual for new reminders.
8. Create a missed reminder interaction.
9. Create the “add contact” flow for users to experience.
Iteration:
With the adjustments made from the user feedback, the final iteration was completed.
Here are some of the updates completed:
Sign Up Tutorial
These are some of the screens from the User Sign Up tutorial that was created. The goal is to minimize questions or concerns about the functionality of the application from the start.
Improved Flow and Clarity
By using the “My Pets” page as the landing page, redundancy and confusion have been alleviated. The User Profile page is now simply that. A place to update user information and create Location Profiles for their pets.
Improved Calendar and Reminders
Adding a notifications spring animation has called attention to the new notifications. Adjusting the reminders has added the ability to add color, profile pictures, and font adjustments to delineate between parent action and caregiver action. There has also been a slide menu added to undo, send, and remove reminders. Examples of existing reminders have also been added.
Improved Contacts Page and Walkthrough
The Contacts page was updated, and a full walkthrough was created to add from the application, your contacts, or to create a new contact.
You can view the second versions of the prototype here:
Next Steps:
The goal of this application is to remove anxiety around appointments and create an easy and effective central location for pet information that can be shared with caregivers. There are some features that could be implemented in the future to improve this.
Calendar Multiple-User Response Functionality
Some users have expressed a wish to be able to send an invite to multiple caregivers and have them pick dates from the invitation. Because the application Doodle does a good job of this, creating an invite similar that would allow a pet parent to send one invite and receive responses for who could take which day would be a good future feature.
Pet Food Purchasing Links
The ability to purchase your pet’s food and treats would be beneficial to the user and also support an income stream. The links could go to specific company sites. This could also allow for the expansion into food suggestions and tips about pet diets.
Collaboration with Pet Professionals
Pet training, Veterinary Services, Grooming Services, Pet Supplies, and more. Creating a way to incorporate ads, and suggestions for people that don’t have regular service providers, and even partnering with Veterinary offices to allow for the instant upload of documents and updates, would move this application to the next level of support for pet parents.