Making Pet Health Easy: UX Design for Dog Owners on the Go

This prototype showcases a UX design exercise for a mobile application that I conceptualized. Inspired by my passion for dogs and as a proud owner of two furry companions, I recognize the deep bond between humans and their pets. However, I also understand the financial challenges that come with pet ownership, particularly when facing costly veterinary visits. This application aims to provide dog owners with alternative options for accessing vetted and high-quality medical advice for their beloved pets.

Is An Expert Really An Expert?

In my past, I’ve worked in an industry that dealt with content creation serving to help people find information they were seeking. However, as I understood more about the business, I realized a lot of the content that was created were not attributed to anyone who was an expert in the topic, rather they were expert editors or writers who were just composing articles based off of material they researched online. Having this knowledge, I questioned how much trust do people really have of the information they find on the net. And how does that translate when people are searching information online when it comes to something near and dear to them as their dog.

How Do You Make Dog Owners Feel Confident With The Advice They Find?

Goal
Creating an app that provides dog owners a service where they can get advice they can confidently trust.

My Role
I concepted the application, refined the experience based on applied research, and created and iterated prototypes for said application.

What Are Dog Owners Really Thinking When They Are Researching Online?

Conducted interviews with 6 different dog owners and asked a series of open-ended questions about their experience doing dog research online as well as specific dog topics, ranging from activities to boarding to veterinary care.

In order to better synthesize the interview responses, I also performed an affinity mapping exercise. The exercise helped me to categorize the responses as well as discover themes within each category.

Dog Owners Place More Scrutiny On Certain Things About Their Dog’s Lives Over Others

Things like activities, purchases (such as treats and toys), boarding, and diet came with less scrutiny compare to the health of their dogs and the medical care they are receiving.

Trustworthy: There was a lack of confidence with the advice they find on the internet. There would be instances, where they would look at multiple sources to confirm the information.

Cost: When they were researching for vets, they considered cost.

Time: Time is a valuable asset. They would find vets closer to them to get there quicker and if there are long wait times at the vet’s office, it can mount up to frustration. And researching online can be time consuming.

Accessibility: The preference for having their vet be readily available to them at any time.

Dog Owners Need An Alternative Way To Get Trusted Health Advice For Their Dogs Because The Current Way Of Getting Advice Is Not Accommodating Enough.

Three Types Of Consumers Who Love Their Dogs

There are dog owners who value their time and need a service that accommodates their busy lifestyle, there are dog owners who are sensitive to cost due to budget constraints, and then there are dog owners who just simply want to figure things out on their own and then decide what to do later.

What Will The App Offer?

Expert articles. It will offer informational articles written by actual veterinarians.

Message veterinarians. It will have a paid feature where users can message a veterinarian. 

Video call with veterinarians. It will have a paid feature where users can schedule a video call with a veterinarian.

Alternative solution.It will provide a low cost and accommodating approach for dog owners.

Which Competitive Mobile Applications Are Currently Offering Similar Features or Experiences In Today’s Market?

How Can I Do It Better? 

By giving dog owners an easy to use dog health advice service that will do the legwork for them.

Keep it simple. There’s no need to make the experience longer than it should be. Dog owners are there to just get helpful advice. They are not there to go through an arduous process, such as creating an account or or a long exploration to find an answer.

Easy to use. An easy system that will guide users through a linear experience to get their answer.

Earn and establish trust. Only have trusted articles written by real and reputable veterinarians and only have veterinarians on the platform who clearly care about their customers.

User Flow Update

Based on the feedback, a couple of things stood out that made me reevaluate my initial user flow.

• The lack of transparency for the price of contacting a veterinarian.

• The lack of credibility on articles due to not showing any information on the contributing writer.

I updated the user flow to take into account the experience needed a screen that shows the pricing of contacting a veterinarian.

Wireframe Update

I also revised the wireframes to reflect the new user flow and created a pricing screen as well as updated the article screen by including a byline section and have it be able to be tapped on so another screen will open to give details of the vet who contributed the article.

Hi-Fidelity Prototype

Based on the learnings I’ve made from the feedback, I decided to push forth and build a hi-fidelity prototype which would get closer to resembling a minimal viable product. However, I would’ve preferred to have 3 different design directions and get user feedback on those to see which one people had a preference for.

It Became Very Targeted

What started off as an attempt to come up with a solution to general questions on dog ownership became very niche. Going through the discovery process, I realized dog owners had the most to say when it came to their dog’s health care. However, there are too many avenues for health advice and not all of them are reliable. Even the most reliable of sources, such as your personal vet, can’t guarantee to fit you in their schedule. So what then?

The answer seems to lie in between seeing a vet in person and doing your own research online, but the solution and the best user experience seems to go back to simplicity and ease of use, which many of the testers appreciated when they went through my prototype. Plus, knowing that articles and veterinarians are already vetted for quality, dog owners don’t have to do it themselves is an icing on the cake.

There’s More To Do

• A second round of user prototype testing based off of revisions from the first round of prototype testing.

• Further flesh out the wireframes after the second round of prototyping.

• Work with veterinarians and get their input on the prototype and if it makes sense to the user experience, make updates.

• Wireframing and prototype testing the video call feature of the app.

• Interview research, wireframing, and prototype testing veterinarian-facing interface.

• Mocking up 3 different design directions and getting user feedback on each of them.