PET CARE

Building a community of pet lovers by shared caring of pets.

Client

Course Project

Designing Human-Centered Systems| CSE 501

My Role

Interaction Designer

User Researcher

Duration

5 months

August 2019 - December 2019

Team Size

Context

MOTIVATION

Most pet owners need to leave their pets for long durations when working or travelling. Many cannot own pets as they are afraid of leaving them alone. Leaving pets in shelters usually degrades the pet's mental and physical health. Another option is to leave with close friends or family, which can be a bit imposing.

Around 15 million pets reported in India in 2016.

THE SOLUTION

PetCare is a mobile app that helps connect pet owners with caretakers who need to leave their pets away from some days and schedule a stay for their pet. The app helps create a community of pet through shared caring of pets location, travel duration, popularity etc, and the approximate time required to cover all the places.

India has the fastest growing pet population in the world.

Approximately 600,000 pets adopted every year in India alone

The Design Process

STEP 1: UNDERSTAND

Conducted Contextual Inquiries to find out user needs.

STEP 3: CREATE

Created low-fi, med-fi, and high-fi prototypes.

STEP 2: DEFINE

Defined the problem statement and basic flow of the system.

STEP 4: TEST

Tested prototypes using think-aloud testing and task analysis.

01. Understanding the Concept

THROUGH CONTEXTUAL INQUIRIES

We conducted contextual inquires to find out the needs of the two user groups - pet owners and caretakers. We then mapped the findings to an affinity diagram to obtain actionable items from the information collected.

Insights from contextual inquiries

Major themes that appeared from affinity mapping

02. Define

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Based on the insights from the contextual inquiry, we came upon the following problem statement -

"How do we connect pet owner and caretakers while ensuring trust and safety of the pets?"

OUR SYSTEM CONCEPT

For our system, we found three main profiles that would be needed to make the application.

Pet Owner Profile

has a verified owner profile.
give & view caretaker reviews.
can edit owner profile and pet profile and add new pets.
can search caretaker and send a pet care request for the pet.
can chat with caretakers to schedule a care.

Pet Profile

has a pet owner profile associated to it.
has medical records and emergency contacts.
view caretaker reviews and ratings.

Caretaker Profile

has a verified caretaker profile.
can view pet care requests, evaluate them, and accept/decline them.
can view pet and its owner's profile.
can chat with pet owners to schedule a care.

03. & 04. Create and Test

LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING

1. Home Screen

2. Enter location, date, duration Screen

3. Interests Screen

4. Place Selection Screen

5. Itinerary and Route Screen

The homepage allows the user to look at their previous trips and start a new one. The user selects various details to generate a personalized travel itinerary. The app generates a route based on the places selected. The app also suggests a packing checklist to the user.

Think Aloud Testing was carried out.

Users were asked to think aloud their experience and expectations while interacting with the app.

MEDIUM-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING

Task analysis consisting of easy, medium and hard tasks conducted to test the prototype.

Based on user feedback, included an information page that gives user the detailed information about a place to enhance the interaction with the app.
The user can access this information by tapping a place card on 'SELECT PLACES'

Included a map view. User is directed to Google Maps when the view is tapped.

FINAL PRODUCT

High-fidelity prototypes with visual language that helps the user associate the app with traveling.
More emphasis on the images of locations to give the user a wholesome view.

The application fetches data of places using Google Places API.

Usability Testing conducted using Lookback.io

Visual Design

LOGO

COLOR SCHEME

Primary: #26A69A
Secondary: #00796B