Snoots2Tails
For me, and for like most pet owners I know, our pets are a very important part of our family. Our pets bring happiness into our lives and in return, they rely on us to keep them safe and healthy. When your pet has a medical issue or even worse, a medical emergency, it can be a stressful and at times scary situation, especially when you are not prepared for it!
Background:
There are currently a large number of apps to help with their pet’s care, but only seem to focus on one aspect of their pet’s care. Some of the well known pet apps like MyPet and Rover focus on finding a pet sitter or dog walker, finding pet inclusive activities within a city/area or reminders for pet’s appointments and/or medication dispensing.
The Problem:
Pet owners are involved in their pets' care and well-being, which most of the time involves keeping track of a large amount of information and documentation. Pet owners need a secure outlet to organize all of their pet’s information in one place, making the owner feel more in control of their pet’s care and prepared for unexpected emergencies.
The Solution:
To create an app that will provide a secure outlet for pet owners to keep all of their pet’s information in one place, including medical records, microchip information, etc for quick access when needed. This app will be fully customizable to include any information that the pet owner chooses to include and will have the capabilities to keep files for multiple pets. We will achieve this by creating an app that will have separate areas for the different kinds of information like medical records, medications, food tracking, etc.
Goals
To create an app for pet owners to store all of their pet’s information in one place, for easier access in case of emergencies, to share with veterinarians or other pet caregivers, etc.
Some of the features included:
Pet profile including appearance, weight, etc
Microchip identification information (if applicable)
Medical records
Medications list and management
Allergies
Food tracking
Hygiene Care
User Research
Objectives I hope to determine in my user research:
Determine if users have utilized any type of pet app for their pet’s care.
Determine how users currently keep their pets information/documents organized.
Determine what information users feel is important to have on hand in case of emergencies and their pet’s every day care.
Market Analysis
The aim of market analysis is to identify the most important characteristics of a market and to determine the market structure at a certain point in time. My goal in conducting this market analysis on pet apps is to determine what type of pet apps are available to consumers and if/how many apps are in use that have the same functions of the app that I am looking to create, if there is a need for a complete pet care management app.
Currently there are not any apps that are able to provide an outlet for complete pet care management, most apps seem to focus more on one aspect of pet’s care. I did an in depth review of the closest competitors to get a feel of how they function and what works/doesn’t work for each site.
Conclusions from Market Research:
After review of the current pet care sites available, 11pets is the closest direct competitor of my app. Their main features include tracking preventative care, hygiene, and nutrition of pets. They also include storing information on medical records-veterinary visits, labs and tests, medications. The user is also able to set reminders for their pet’s care.
Two of the other apps reviewed (Petamiko and PetDesk) include Virtual Care with video chat which could prove to be important, especially in cases where the user is unable to get into the physical office (ex: lockdowns from CoVID)
Several of the apps are able to be shared with veterinary staff and other caregivers. This makes giving updated information easy, as all the information is located in one place.
User Interviews
To better understand the needs of a variety of pet owners, I conducted user interviews with participants, all current pet owners (2 participants with multiple cats and the other has 1 dog), 2 female and 1 male.
Several key findings were determined:
When you are a pet owner, important information to have on hand in case of an emergency including all the pet’s medical records, including vaccines and a list of current/past medications.
There are 2 groups of people: People who keep and file their pets medical records and other information and people who rely on their veterinarian to have all of their pet’s medical records on file.
There is a desire to be able to access the pet’s important medical information quickly and easily when confronted with an emergency situation.
Pet owners organize their pet’s care information:
Saving paper and electronic receipts
Keeping all pet’s information filed in a folder
Keeping receipts only and depending on the veterinary office to keep complete medical records
During an emergency situation with their pet, people feel:
Sad that their pet was in pain
Very helpless and concerned there was a life threatening issue
Very scared about what was going to happen to their pet
Pet owners find their current filing method to be:
Time consuming and tedious to keep up to date but effective
Can be messy and unorganized, hard to find the specific information needed
Would not have any of pet’s medical information if needed to go to ER due to not keeping track of pet’s records other than thru vet office
Creating Solutions
Defining the target audience:
Pet owners of any age or gender
Pet owners that want to easily organize aspects of their pet’s care including medical records, etc in one place
Pet owners that want to be able to access their pet’s care information quickly, especially in case of emergencies
Pet owners that want to be able to share their pet’s information with other caregivers like sitters, veterinarians, etc.
Empathy Map
How Might We Statements:
How might we make a less stressful situation when the pet owners are faced with an emergency?
How might we organize the app so the pet owner can quickly locate the pet records they are looking for?
How might we keep the pet records up to date?
How might we link the records to other people so that all of the pet’s caregivers have up to date information?
How might we make it easy for pet owners to easily enter their pet’s records (both new and existing)?
Persona #1
Persona #2
Features
The Snoots2Tails app has to be organized so that the pet owner can quickly and easily locate a specific record or entry that they are searching for when needed, especially when faced with an emergency with their pet. The information in the app needs to have the ability to be updated by the pet owner as well as any other of the pet’s caregivers such as veterinary staff.
I began by mapping out the task flow that each of my personas would use in caring for their pet. I also worked through a site map to help determine the navigational flow of the site.
Task Flows
Site Map
User Need #1
To be able to manage their pet’s medication, including dosage and times, and send the medication information to another caregiver.
Solution:
Manage Medications menu option added and ability to email or text information to another caregiver
User need #2
To be able to view any diagnostic and lab results from the veterinary office as soon as the results have been uploaded.
Solution:
Click on Menu options for Diagnostic Test Results with detailed information about the test including results, veterinary office given, date and time.
Sketches
Additional Wireframes
Usability Testing:
My main goal for this usability test is to understand how users react to/interact with the pet care management app and make any changes needed to make Snoots2Tails easy for users to navigate and utilize based on the testing results.
With this test, I want to determine:
If Snoots2Tails is easy for the user to navigate (complete tasks) with little to no instruction
If Snoots2Tails fulfills the user’s need to keep all of their pets files organized in one easy to access location
If there are any elements missing from Snoots2Tails that would improve user experience
To complete the usability testing, I used low fidelity wireframes and worked with 3 participants, once again all current pet owners. This time 2 participants had 1 or 2 dogs and 1 participant had 2 cats. These participants were chosen to best reflect my target audience, pet owners of any age with at least one pet that want to have quick access to their pet’s medical and care information, organized in one location.
Test Findings:
The usability testing of the Snoots2Tails app went very well, and no issues with navigation within the app were found. The participants made comments on the ease of use in finding specific information with little to no instruction.
Additional Mockups
Branding/Logo
In creating the logo, I wanted the logo to represent the function of this app in making the complete care of our pets (from head to toe) easier for the user, with all of the pet’s information in one accessible location. As seen below, I brainstormed some ideas for the name and the image to best represent this app. Snoots2Tails represents the care of our pets from head to toe.
Next steps:
As I was only able to test this feature on a small scale (3 participants) within the constraints of this project, one of the next steps would be to do a re-test of this app on a larger scale using the high fidelity mockups to see if the findings still hold true.
If given more time to re-iterate on this app design, I would love to design out the complete site including all of the screens and menu options. Future features I would like to include would be a scanner option for the users to be able to scan documents to upload them into their files quicker and a page to include resources for your pet such as first aid procedures to use in an emergency and training guides to help walk through different processes in behavioral training.
Creating this app was definitely a learning experience for me. I utilized Adobe XD to create the wireframes and the high fidelity mockups, my first experience using this software. I was also able to better fine tune my spatial relationships of the elements within the app in a mobile setting.
