PetPawket — All pet services in your pocket — Part 1 of 2

Context

Traditionally, pet owners in India have relied on offline resources for pet-related services. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of businesses having a digital presence for the benefit of both businesses and consumers.

During the early stages of the pandemic, when lockdowns were being implemented, many businesses shifted their operations to digital platforms to continue providing essential services to customers.

The inspiration for this project came from a series of problems I faced personally as a pet owner. I worked on this project and created this case study as a potential solution to help solve for the concerns pet owners have in India.

🧐 Identifying the Problem

In response to the changing consumer behaviour and the need for contactless services, many businesses in India started developing mobile applications and websites for a wide range of services, — grocery delivery, food delivery, doctor consultations, medicine delivery, personal grooming services, home repair services — All of these services cover most needs that a consumer may have as a human.🙋🏽‍♀️

However, the pet care industry in India has been slow to embrace this trend. As a result, pet owners are still struggling to find reliable and convenient services for their furry friends.

📝 Project Statment

Designing for simplifying and making pet ownership enjoyable in India

⚙️ Design Process

I followed a non-linear design process, involving iterative refinement and the ability to move forward and backwards between stages based on feedback and insights

I followed a non-linear design process for the following reasons —

User-Centered Design: The inclusion of stages like surveys and gathering feedback from the target audience helped me follow a user-centered design approach. The ongoing back-and-forth between stages formed an iterative loop which helped keep in check that the final product aligns closely with user needs and preferences.

Adaptability to Insights: By allowing for movement between stages, the insights gained at any point influenced the design. For instance, the survey results prompted a reevaluation of the initial ideation I had for the ambulance feature, leading to a more refined and realistic solution.

Continuous Validation: Through surveys and prototyping there have been multiple points of validation. Surveys allowed to validate ideas and designs and prototyping helped validate user flows, visual design and also usability when tested with Users.

Efficient Workflow: Juggling stages wasn’t just helping troubleshoot; it’s a time-smart move. Testing wireframes before diving into high-fidelity screens helps me refine information architecture and flow, cutting down on the need for major changes later in the process.

Let’s begin the journey —

📚 Research

I started by doing a preliminary survey to gain insights into the pet industry in India.

Primary Research

(For context, my research is within Bangalore)

As I began my research, I found that there are 3 primary “Heads Up for Tails”, “Petsy”, and “Supertails” that have made a mark in the Indian market for pet products (eg. pet-food, pet-toys, pet-hygiene products etc), no brand name comes to mind that stands out in the industry providing high-quality pet related services.

A few basic questions and their answers —

What do pet services include?

• Veterinary consultations & Ambulance booking
• Pet grooming services
• Pet sitters, boarders, walkers, trainers for pets
• Homemade meal subscriptions for pets
• Pet rescue & Adoption services
• Pet supplies delivery

Where do pet owners discover pet services?

The mediums from where the service is procured may depend on the type of service being booked —

1. Offline (Pet stores, clinics and word-of-mouth recommendations)
2. Online (Google search, dedicated websites, social media ads)

User Interviews/Polls on Facebook Pet Communities

As part of my research, I conducted polls and interviews on Facebook as it was the most accessible way to understand user behaviour in the pet community space, respecting time as a constraint.

As a member of multiple Indian pet owner Facebook communities, I conducted two targeted polls to gain valuable insights into the demand for a pet-related mobile app.

With responses from over 60 participants across two groups, these polls validate the need to design and develop an app that caters to the specific needs of Indian pet owners.

Insights from Primary Research:

After engaging with participants on Facebook post-polls, insights revealed a reliance on word of mouth and individual searches for pet services, often resulting in suboptimal outcomes due to subjective reviews. Participants emphasized the fatigue of managing contacts for diverse services.

However, introducing the idea of a product addressing the above concerns, garnered overwhelmingly positive responses. Participants expressed strong interest in the app, highlighting the convenience of having a single platform to address all their pet needs. This feedback underscores the demand for a comprehensive pet-related mobile app, instilling confidence in its potential success.

Secondary Research

After understanding the problems highlighted in the primary research, and a little bit about the potential user behavior, I wanted a quick overview of what I could find about the pet industry online.

The pet industry in India is experiencing a significant shift towards the humanization of pets, where pets are increasingly considered part of the family and receive similar care and attention as humans. This trend is driving the demand for a wide range of pet care services and products.

With the rise of nuclear families, urbanization, and changing lifestyles, more people in India are seeking companionship through pet ownership. This has led to a substantial increase in pet adoptions across the country.

Source — There is definitely a need for an app that caters to the needs of pets — In the west, mobile apps have already given a proof of concept that they make pet care easier and more manageable

Insights from Secondary Research

The insights derived from my research provide valuable information on the market potential, competitive advantage, customer pain points, market demand for tech-driven solutions, and the changing consumer behaviour that can guide the solution.

🎯 Who is this solution for?

From my primary and secondary research I could find the 2 user groups as below —

1. Users who already have pets and require services (vets, emergency services meals, pet boarders, pet trainers) for them.
2. Users who may not have pets and are looking to adopt may download the app for the adoption service available on the app

For the purpose of this case study, I will first be focusing on the User group “Users looking to book services for pets”.

What kind of problems am I going to address?

Let’s understand this with the help of personas.

Persona 1: The Time strapped Professional

Problem: To find all pet services in one place

Solution:

To provide all services catering to the multiple needs of the pets, all on one platform, categorised well enough for the Users to browse and book services easily.

Post onboarding, a User will land on the Home page, which serves as the primary anchor point of the app, as it welcomes the User immediately after onboarding and logging in. It plays a pivotal role in facilitating seamless navigation to other sections of the application.

I made a sitemap of the Homepage, to plan out the overall structure and flow in the mobile app.

This step also helped me understand beforehand how the different sections and functionalities are to be interconnected and make the overall navigation intuitive.

Sitemap starting from the Home page in PetPawket

The app’s main highlight is its range of services, and instead of these being lost in deep navigations whereby they would not be easily discoverable, these are prominently featured and visible to the User on the Home page. Additionally, a dedicated page for services can be accessed through a button on the bottom navigation bar.

To ensure ease of use, the services have been thoughtfully organized into categories and sub-categories. This way, users can effortlessly locate the specific service or services they are interested in.

For the purpose of this case study, the focus will be on the Services section in the app, particularly the “Pet Health” section.

Sitemap of how the services are arranged into categories and sub-categories

The Services section is in the first fold of the screen. The services are categorized into each of the 6 categories and the illustrations for each ETA help guide the User to tap on the category of their choice

To ensure a user-friendly experience, the Home page should prominently display essential calls-to-action (CTAs) in a prioritized manner, along with the most critical features to make them readily accessible for the User.

During the process of designing the homepage, I went through several iterations to refine the overall look and feel. I identified several key areas that required improvement in terms of tidiness, balance, and organization. Here are the specific details of the changes made in each iteration:

By going through these iterative stages, I aimed to create a homepage design that is visually appealing, user-friendly, and effectively communicates the desired information.

Petpawket 1st iteration and final iteration prototype comparison

Persona 2: The ‘Senior Pet’ Caretaker

Problem: Providng a pet-friendly and reliable transportation option to clinics for emergencies

Solution:

To provide the facility of booking ambulances to the clinics chosen by the User.

Assumptions made:

PetPawket as a company is affiliated with several pet clinics across the country.

PetPawket is conceptualized on the premise of it partnering as a business with third-party clinics in order to provide the following advantages —

1. Sufficient bandwidth to serve: To ensure prompt service to users across multiple locations, a medical emergency service like an “ambulance” requires sufficient bandwidth. One potential solution is to partner with multiple clinics in each locality.
2. Meeting pet owners’ preferences: Through surveys and conversations with other pet owners, it was discovered that a significant majority of them prefer to have their pets treated exclusively by veterinary doctors and clinics they already trust and are familiar with. By partnering with multiple clinics, PetPawket enables pet owners to select the clinic and veterinarian they prefer, resulting in an expansion of PetPawket’s user base.
3. Quality Control: By partnering with third-party clinics, PetPawket gains the ability to exert control over the quality of services provided up to a certain degree, benefiting users who book services through the PetPawket app.

PetPawket primarily facilitates the provision of ambulances to veterinary clinics selected by users as part of its Ambulance service. This approach serves two key purposes:

1. Merely partnering with veterinary clinics/hospitals would not suffice, as a user’s chosen clinic may or may not possess its own ambulance. Consequently, relying solely on booking an ambulance request with a clinic would pose a significant risk for the user.
2. By maintaining its own fleet of ambulances, PetPawket ensures superior quality control, guaranteeing the presence of essential equipment and highly skilled emergency personnel aboard each ambulance. This approach enhances the overall reliability and effectiveness of the service.

Initially, I defined a few rough flows and wireframes for how the ambulance booking service flow would be. My main focus was around how a User would prefer to select clinic to book an ambulance for —

Wireframes for booking an ambulance, selecting clinics in multiple ways

In order to validate these flows, I ran some polls on Facebook groups again —

1. 1st poll to find out — How Users would prefer selecting a clinic during emergency.
2. 2nd poll to find out — Whether Users would prefer to pay before the ambulance trip or after the ambulance trip.

I reached out to the people who participated and also spoke to a few close contacts who had pets and had dealt with emergencies. This process gave me a lot of clarity and direction in designing the process end to end and helped me refine the booking process further.

Cumulative results from the polls on Facebook for the above 2 questions

Conclusion from polls:

1. Proximity of the pet clinic/hospital was of not much importance to Users, they prefer being in control and manually selecting the clinic of their choice. Therefore just auto-assigning the nearest clinic for an ambulance request may not be a preferable solution.
2. Only 27% of the User group voted for ‘prepaid’, which means the flow has to be designed in a way which prompts the User to pay only after their ambulance trip to the pet clinic/hospital has ended.

I therefore finalised the flow to be as below-

Now I will deep dive into each stage of the booking an ambulance flow —

Final Prototype for booking an ambulance end-to-end

🎨 Visuals

Since I am creating PetPawket from scratch, I created the logo, chose colours and typography. I started with designing the logo for the brand first, and then based on the colours of the logo I created a palette for all the elements in the app.

Conclusion

What did I learn?

1. Market Demand: The research conducted underscored the undeniable demand for a comprehensive pet care mobile app in India. This project illuminated the growing trend of humanizing pets and the substantial market potential in the pet care industry.
2. User-Centered Design: Through user interviews, surveys, and interactions with pet owners, I gained a deep appreciation for the importance of user-centered design. This project reiterated the significance of empathizing with the needs and concerns of the target audience and designing a solution that genuinely caters to them.
3. Iterative Design: The iterative design process was a fundamental learning point. Adapting to feedback and making refinements at each stage of designing not only improved the app but also taught me the value of flexibility and continuous improvement in product design.
4. Visual Design: Creating the brand identity, logo, and overall visual style of the app was a valuable lesson in branding and user experience. Design choices, including color schemes and typography, played a significant role in conveying the app’s personality.

What I could have done better?

While the iterations and my final design show progress, I still see potential in certain areas that could be improved. Some of them are —

1. Project Planning: At the project’s inception, I initially underestimated the complexity of designing the entire app from end to end within a short timeframe. As I progressed through the design process, I recognized the need to adjust my approach and overall strategy, prioritizing certain aspects and sections of the app for design first to ensure a more manageable and effective workflow.
2. User Testing and Research: While I carried out research and user testing, a more extensive and diverse group of testers could have provided even more valuable feedback. Engaging with a larger pool of potential users would have revealed more nuanced insights.
3. Visuals: The Onboarding screens in my opinion can still be further improved, the layout could be made more minimal. The illustrations throughout the app could be replaced with real life images of pets, and pet service providers as Users may relate more to such images. Although I like the color that I chose for the app, I still would like to experiment with other colors for the logo, buttons and other elements.

The End?

I loved working on this project as I not only solved for a problem that I face personally but also for a vast majority across India. Rest assured this is not the end!!! I have worked on this project extensively enough to have a part 2 for this as well since including all that work in just 1 case study would overwhelm most readers.

My next case study covers the “Veterinary Consultations” service in the app. Click here -

PetPawket — All pet services in your pocket — Part ‘2’