THE DESIGN

I wanted the solution to have Whistle's ultimate goal in mind: help pet-owners keep their pets safe, healthy and happy. With this in mind, I designed a pet portal, a platform where pet-owners could store pertinent information about their pets, ranging from vaccination information, to feeding requirements and emergency contact information. This platform also connected pet-care providers, like dog-walkers, to pet-owners, allowing them to schedule services, create invoices, and send payments.

CONTEXT & CHALLENGE

Whistle, the creator of a GPS pet-tracking collar, is interested in helping connect pet-owners with additional services to care for their pets.

My client asked me to create a mobile application that allows pet-owners to keep comprehensive information about their pet, ranging from healthcare information to emergency contact information in one place, while also allowing them to connect with pet-care providers for any needs that arise.

GETTING STARTED

RESEARCH & SYNTHESIS

I conducted a survey to find out the answers to our key questions and identify problem areas in the pet-care industry. Here’s what I found:

• 20% of walkers found scheduling to be a pain point in managing their business.
• Nearly 50% of difficult work-related issues arose due to lack of information or instructions.

Based on these findings, I decided to:

• Create a "pet profile" where users could store and share information.
• Allow pet-owners and pet-care providers to schedule services and make payments.
• Design a mobile app, based on the method of communication most often used.

PERSONAS

I uncovered three main key players in my research process, that being the pet, the pet-owner and the pet-care provider. I especially wanted to explore ways in which the owner and provider came together to take care of the pet. Using the information  gathered during research, I created these personas.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

After synthesizing the data from the user research and competitive analysis, I started sketching out content layout, a site-map and user journeys. I wanted to figure out what to include in the first design sprint, how information within the app would be categorized and if I was correctly solving for the personas' problems.

IDEATION & ITERATION

Identifying key areas of interaction between the two users, the pet-owner and the dog-walker, I began sketching out screens based on two initial user flows:

1. Pet-owner receiving an update via message from the dog-walker.

2. Pet-owner receiving and submitting payment for an invoice from the dog-walker.

SOLUTION

I created two user flows with page-by-page UX recommendations. The screens gave a detailed glimpse into functionality of the application, while also showcasing the visual design and content of each screen.

ANNOTATED SCREENS