The Human with Pets
For thousands of years, various purposes have been served by domesticating and worshipping animals.
In this study, I intend to talk about pets and the way life can revolve around them. Here, I have focused on the requirements pet and their guardians have. And it’s a fact that it is not an easy thing for them. On a daily basis, they require plenty of things and services when they live in metro cities as well as tier two and three cities. It’s about what we can do to solve the problem issues they face. Before that, I have to share a story with you all about how I decided I want to work on anything related to pets. Its sole purpose is to create a better future for our furry friends and animal lovers.
Back in 2020, I wanted to work on something that could help the pets and their humans who enjoy having pets as companions. In order to get a sense of my friends’ feelings about their pets, I interviewed a few of them. As I interviewed everyone, I found plenty of issues and problems. My interviews revealed a similar pattern of problems. So, I thought of my own experience with having a pet in my life to dive deeper into this topic. By this time, the first wave of Covid-29 had hit and I was experiencing its first lockdown. Considering the situation I didn’t know where to get a puppy from or adopt one, my search online turned up mostly adoption lists. I tried calling on several numbers, but most of them turned out to be for sale. This itself gave me a huge shock that the breeders would use the term ‘adopt’ in their posts on social media to attract more people calling them. Any which ways, since I had made my decision to get the puppy, I enquired further with breeders. There was a huge price difference between male and female puppies. Unfortunately, humans tend to reject female puppies to avoid taking care of them while they are on their heat or future issues if in case the female gets pregnant. These reasons were never for me. I never felt that these would be issues for me to not get a female puppy. Whatever might be the reason, due to lockdown desperation and an impulsive decision, I got myself my new companion, a female German Shepard. She is known by the name Bella.
As soon as we get a pet, we face a number of problems. A few of them are listed below:
- Not sure what to feed, when to feed.
- Timely vaccinations.
- Training methods.
- Emergency medicines.
- Caretaker In case are busy, who will take care?
- Time constraints for daily walks.
- Traveling with pets.
- Pet-friendly accommodations.
During and before I became a parent to Bella, these were the issues and problems I faced. This was quite an unexpected experience (in a good sense), but the best thing to describe it is like having a human baby who crawls, litters everywhere, and chews on everything. Over the course of a few days, I was unable to sleep at all. Nevertheless, after a few days and a bit of training, the puppy issues were mostly resolved.
That reminds me of the incident after which I started thinking more deeply about my project. The problem began the next day after bringing Bella home. Few worms came out of her system when she puked, and it scared the crap out of me. Immediately I rushed to the veterinarian to know what was wrong and he said casually that it isn’t a big deal, most puppies have worms in their stomach and it needs timely deworming to keep them healthy. And that incident made me realize that I am unaware of most things.
My whole experience raising a puppy taught me one very important thing which is patience in life with many other things like improving my daily routine, a daily habit of walking and exercising, good food habits, and taking care of someone who cannot speak or ask anything other than love.
Online, you’ll find tons of solutions but don’t know which one to choose. As a result, I am able to do more research on any app or platform we have with the correct solution. At that time, however, there were none.
Isn’t it great if we had an app with good, easy solutions backed by professionals that could answer all the questions and have multiple ways to tackle any issue? Let’s explore how an app could make humans’ lives easier by keeping their pets and them happy.
Let’s see this in different ways that must be utilized to get this started:
Qualitative Research
In order to determine which direction I pursued regarding pet app building, I interviewed a few pet parents. The following questions are asked:
- Which breeds do users have?
- What is the frequency with which users leave their pets alone?
- What kind of job do users have?
- Where do users buy pet supplies?
- Do users have access to vet information in case of an emergency?
- When users travel with their pets, do they leave them with someone or do they take them with them?
- Are users familiar with the process of pet training?
- What is the frequency with which users take their pets on walks?
Key insights
- The majority of users have large or medium-sized breeds.
- Leaving pets alone at home was very common before COVID 19 or after, but it was never the parents’ choice.
- In cities and towns, most users have office jobs, while in villages, it’s the opposite.
- Most people leave their pets with friends and family if they are going out of town.
- It is customary for users to walk their pets every morning and evening.
- They don’t have a lot of options when it comes to pet supplies because they bought them locally. It is expensive to use online platforms like Amazon and other brands.
- Several users are unaware of how to properly train their pets.
- During an emergency, most users do not know where to find a veterinarian in the village or city.
Quantitative Research
As a result of a survey and interview, I gathered data that helped me understand the differences between city, town, and village users’ mindsets. During my visit to a few villages in Uttarakhand, I noticed that most of the households had pets as family members and guards. (Bonus: you can conduct interviews and surveys at meetups)
Statistics on pet ownership were collected only in a few countries worldwide:
- https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/us-pet-ownership-statistics
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41122333_Demography_of_domestic_dogs_in_rural_and_urban_areas_of_the_Coquimbo_region_of_Chile_and_implications_for_disease_transmission
- https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/the-hub/story/the-pet-bet-227253-2019-09-02
Key insights
- Pet owners want information about their pet’s health and activities.
- It is crucial for users to gain trust in pet sitters and pet walkers.
- Online pet supplies should be easy to find and within budget.
- It is comfortable for users to consult with vets virtually.
- It is important for users to train their pets for a friendly life.
- Traveling with pets can be challenging for users who are not familiar with how to do it.
- Instead of buying a pet, users prefer to adopt one.
Brainstorm
Technology:-
- Regular health monitoring
- Tracking chips
- Behavior tracker
- Training programs
- Spy Cams
Education:-
- Virtual training tutorials by experts
- An e-book on animal training and behavior
- Socialization
- Pet Meets
- Articles of different issues and knowledge base about pets
Human Involvement:-
- The pet parent
- Non-profit organization's
- Opportunity for trainers
- Awareness of pet-friendly events
- A platform for pet sitters
- One-stop shopping
- Parks, restaurants, and hotels that welcome pets
- Consultations with veterinarians
- Online Groups
Future benefits of the app:-
- Awareness of petting/fostering animals
- Access to animal-related information
- The importance of medical knowledge(veterinarian)
- Building an animal-friendly community
- A proper tracking system
- An animal’s profile
- The adoption process
- The mate-match
As a result of interviewing a few pet parents, data showed that the age group was not just the youngsters, but also adults above 16 years of age who felt the need for such a platform that could be there for any pet-related issues. Both urban and rural sectors needed to cover a lot of ground.
Let’s understand who are we targeting.
Persona
Target user — Pet parents/lovers above 16 years of age
Occupation — could be from any profession
Needs and Goals:-
- To know about a breed to nurture them better
- To train in a proper manner
- To know more about what to feed
- To keep track of vaccinations and health check-ups
- To find places for their socialization
- To know more about what is good for them as treats and what is an absolute no
- To know about pet-friendly parks and other spaces
Values that will be covered.
The challenge is to create a pet parent’s and animal lover’s app that helps them manage all their pet care needs in a transparent and easy way. It provides a single platform for searching for various services, such as pet sitters, groomers, walkers, hotels, trainers, shops, vets, clinics, mating, and whatnot. Helping those in need is the main goal.
How will it function?
- The purpose of this is to create a pet profile that includes all the information about the pet’s health and daily routine.
- This profile is for those who would like to contribute their services as pet sitters, walkers, consultants, vets, nutritionists, or trainers.
- Most solutions can be found by asking one another on a community page.
- A one-stop shop for all your animal needs.
- Booking and emergency services for pet clinics and hospitals.
- A community for the lost and found.
- A community for adoption.
- Park, cafe, restaurant, and stay nearby that are pet-friendly.
- Cabs or other means of transportation that are pet-friendly.
A combination of data collected from personas, product research, user research, and goals and needs. I compiled all the information in the user flow.
As a result of sorting cards, I can see how many features are under each section, and determine if any new features can be added in the future.
Created a low-fi wireframe by digging deeper into the flow. There are so many options and features that can be added in the app that can overwhelm users, so only a few can be added in phase one, and then the rest can be added incrementally.
As funny as it sounds, I started this project to raise awareness for animals, but once I got Bella, I invested almost all of my time into understanding, nurturing, and loving her. There was a time when I lost track of this project. My research is summarized here, I’ll describe the design phase and the complications I encountered.
Design Phase
After all the research and data I came up with a low-fi wireframe.
Before starting working on the final design, I need to create a branding and design system. So it can be used as the base to create the final screens and also to set the standard for the brand's present and future.
