Pet Pulse — A UX Case Study

Introduction

With Pet Pulse, all paper records, scattered digital files, and pet health information can be consolidated into a single app. This student project was completed within a 6 week sprint, from mid April to late May as a part of Design Interactive’s 2024 Spring Cohort. The initial prompt was to create an integrated platform to simplify healthcare for pet owners. Through rigorous research and analysis, our team informed the design and development of an interactive prototype that facilitates seamless management of pet healthcare records and appointments. This user-centered approach ensures that our solution meets the diverse needs of pet owners while enhancing accessibility to vital veterinary services.

Awarded: Best Overall Design

Responsibilities and Timeline

Research

Our team employed a multi-faceted approach to gather insights into the challenges faced by pet owners in managing pet healthcare.

Research Goals

Our primary goals were to:

• Identify user pain points in managing pet healthcare.
• Understand user preferences and behaviors in utilizing digital platforms for pet healthcare.
• Develop design principles for an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

We began with a thorough literature review to understand existing research on pet healthcare and identify common user pain points. Subsequently, we conducted brainstorming sessions and affinity mapping exercises to formulate targeted research questions.

To collect data, we distributed surveys to 50 pet owners and conducted in-depth interviews with 8 participants. During these interviews, participants were given behavioral tasks navigating the UC Davis Vet Hospital website to observe their processes in making appointments and accessing pet health information.

Hard Data Obtained

From our surveys and interviews, we gathered quantitative and qualitative data on several key metrics:

• Percentage of pet owners struggling with medical record keeping.
• Preference percentages between telemedicine and physical check-ups.
• User satisfaction ratings and pain points regarding current veterinary interfaces.

Key Takeaways

1. User Pain Points: Identified significant challenges including difficulties in record keeping, variations in experience between telemedicine and physical visits, and complexities in accessing pet healthcare information.
2. Design Priorities: Emphasized the importance of creating a streamlined interface that minimizes sensory overload and enhances usability for users of varying ages and technical proficiencies.

Demographic Makeup

Participants in our research varied in terms of age, occupation, educational background, and pet ownership demographics. This diversity allowed us to capture a broad spectrum of perspectives and tailor our design solutions accordingly.

Ideation

Sketches

With ideas surrounding decreasing stress and increasing efficiency in pet healthcare, we created sketches of potential screens for record keeping, clinic finding, appointment scheduling, pet profile editing, and vet messaging. Key features like record keeping, appointment scheduling, and vet messaging made it to later iterations — however, we decided to reduce our focus on the clinic finding aspect, as we felt that kind of research was not central to our app’s purpose. Another simplification included consolidating pet profile editing to the home page alongside important notifications.

User Flows

From our surveys and interviews, we were able to pinpoint several key goals to center our user flows around. We wanted to reduce how much pet owners have to manually input data before scheduling appointments, so that step is easily completed in onboarding and pet profile editing. That way, emergency appointments, reschedules, and cancellations can be done in minutes with autofilled info. To boost transparency and communication between pet owner and their vets, medical files tracking conditions, lab results, vaccinations, and more can be uploaded and organized in records. Any other questions, comments, and concerns can be addressed directly in messages accessible from the home screen. With these key features in mind, we split our app into onboarding and three main pages, including a centralized home page, medical records, and appointments.

Mid-fi Prototyping

Sketches to Figma

To visualize the features and elements needed to address the problem, we worked through our sketches in Figma. We created an onboarding process to set up an account for the user and pet information, with the option to link a veterinarian clinic and pet insurance. The home page serves as a hub for users to view upcoming vet appointments, access their pet profiles, and learn about their pet health and vet services. Within the app, the user can easily schedule an appointment with a veterinarian clinic. Medical records exchanged with the veterinarian are also uploaded and received by the user.

Usability Testing

For usability testing, we wanted to analyze any pain points and the overall user experience of the following tasks:

• Complete Onboarding process
• View, reschedule, and cancel appointments
• View vaccinations
• View & Add medical records of specific pets

We conducted 8 usability tests, with all of the participants being students, ages 19–22. From these tests we learned:

A/B Testing

After implementing changes in our prototype to reflect our findings from usability testing, we wanted to understand user preferences on the following features:

• Viewing a particular medical record
• Rescheduling/Canceling an appointment
• Placement pop-up for additional vaccine information

We conducted A/B Testing with 11 participants by having them vote between different visual representations for each of these tasks and implemented their feedback into our final design.

Hi-fi Prototyping

Creating the Design System

Our design system was developed based on a thorough understanding of user preferences, usability principles, and industry standards. We chose a color palette predominantly influenced by medical affiliations, utilizing shades of blue to convey trust and professionalism. This choice was inspired by successful medical institutions like Kaiser Permanente and UCSF, which use blue as a primary color.

Additionally, we embraced a minimalist approach to reduce visual clutter and cognitive load. Accent colors were strategically employed to highlight actionable elements such as buttons, ensuring intuitive navigation and clear visual hierarchy. The incorporation of off-white tones further contributed to a softer, less straining brightness level for prolonged use.

Implementing Usability Testing Findings into the Prototype

Incorporating usability testing findings into the prototype was a critical step in ensuring our design met the needs and preferences of pet owners. Some of the findings included preferences for button placement, readability concerns with login screens, and the desire for a minimalistic yet professional aesthetic.

Transitioning from Mid-Fi to Hi-Fi

The mid-fi prototypes provided a foundational understanding of user flows and interaction patterns. As we progressed to hi-fi prototypes, our focus shifted to refining visual details, ensuring consistency across design elements, and enhancing the overall aesthetic appeal and usability of the app. The biggest difference in transitioning to hi-fi prototypes was the level of detail and fidelity in design elements. We implemented the same components, colors, alignments, and typography styles across all screens to maintain visual coherence and reinforce brand identity. This consistency was crucial in establishing a unified user experience and reinforcing the professional image of the app.

Presentation Day

Presentation day was a whirlwind of emotions: relief for being done but sadness for letting go of such a powerful quarter. Seeing not just our team but all of the cohorts dressed up and antsy in their seats was like a scene from a movie, this was a day we never really imagined reaching.

We were judged by Neha Deshmukh, a UX Designer at Amazon. Her feedback was incredibly valuable, emphasizing our research strengths and guiding us to refine problem definition when implementing educational aspects of the app.

Challenges

In the beginning, we faced difficulties with user empathy and understanding users’ pain points because no one on the team is a pet owner. Therefore, we were thorough in the user research stage to properly understand our user’s needs, wants, goals, and issues with pet health care.

Next Steps

With more time granted, we wished to continue developing a desktop view and a dark mode, design the veterinarian’s perspective of the app when interacting with pet owners, and include a video call option for pet owners to communicate with vets.