Pet Sitter Finder Mobile APP

Category

User Research, UI/UX Design, Usability Test

Industry

Pet, C2C

My Role

User Researcher, UI/UX Designer

Application Used

Figma, Adobe Photoshop

Project Overview
This mobile app called FurryAT is a product of the digital media entrepreneurship course I took as part of my graduate studies at Northeastern University. Within the course, nine students presented ideas for digital media startups, but only two projects were selected for further development after a voting process. This voting considered each project's feasibility and each student's passion for their idea. Fortunately, my project garnered the most support for development, for which I am deeply grateful to my peers for their trust and endorsement.
This project involved creating a mobile application that assists pet owners in finding pet sitters within their neighborhood or community when they are temporarily unable to care for their pets. My main roles were Product Designer and UI/UX Designer, delivering outputs that included a minimum viable product (MVP), wireframes, prototypes, user research, and a go-to-market strategy.

Design Process

When drafting the project, I found a general need for pet owners to find someone they can trust to take care of their furry kids when they leave the family for a vacation, business trip, or some other reason.
Industry Research
My team and I conducted a series of user research on the pet industry, competitive products, and pet parents to gain insights into the industry and understand user behavior.
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Over 82 million American households own at least one pet. It takes up about 67% of all U.S. households.
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40% of Americans, which is almost 100 million people, will take at least 1 vacation each year. Of those 100 million people, 28% will take 3 or more vacations per year.
Even though there are already many ways of pet boarding and pet sitting, some pet parents still want to find a better way to ensure their beloved pets are well cared for when they have to be absent.
Competitive Analysis
Pet boarding has developed many models. There are traditional offline kennels, as well as online applications for finding pet sitters.
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The advantage of traditional kennels and cathouses is that brick-and-mortar stores can provide more customer trust, but they will be limited by coverage. Most online apps have a function to help users match nearby pet sitters, but many users are concerned about the qualifications and personalities of sitters.
Survey
We conducted user research on two groups, pet owners and pet sitters. We collected a total of 90 questionnaires, and I concluded the key findings for each group.
Moderated Interview
We interviewed a total of 15 pet owners and pet sitters. We learned more about their behaviors and preferences.
Questions we want to know include:
For Pet Owners
For Pet Sitters
How do you find pet sitters? Where do you look?
Whenever you leave your pet with someone, what’s going through your mind?
How much did you pay each time for the pet sitting?
Are you satisfied with the pet sitting service you have used? Why or why not?
Does your pet have any medical conditions that require special care?
Does it ease your mind if pet sitters have passed some background check?
How do people usually approach you?
How many times have you experienced sitting pets for others?
What do you usually do when you look after pets for others?
Do pet owners like the way you take care of their pets? What do they like?
Do you have any pets? If so, how do you handle conflict between pets?
Do you have a professional pet care certificate?
Selected answers from our interview:
“Asking a neighbor to take care of Alex puts me more at ease. I will trust them more because we belong to the same community. I will also tell them in advance that it’s paid.”
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- Mercer, Kitten Alex's Dad
“I was anxious at first, but then I felt better. My pet sitter took pictures and gave me feedback on Gray. The sitter always let me know after feeding and walking him.”

- Steven, Corgi Gray’s Dad
“I used to have two cats but it wasn’t often that they would fight, they were friendly. If conflict were to ever occur I would move one of them to another room to avoid unexpected injuries.”
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- Michael, Pet Lover and Sitter
User Research
To have a deep understanding of the user's needs, behaviors, and emotions. I created an empathy map to capture the concerns and motivations of potential users, highlighting their uncertainties about finding reliable pet sitters and their desire for reassurance about pet safety and sitter professionalism.

Also, the journey map outlined the critical touchpoints from finding a pet sitter to post-care review, ensuring a seamless user experience by identifying and addressing potential pain points, such as the need for real-time interaction with the pet sitter.
Persona
Personas were then crafted to represent the app's diverse user base, ranging from young professionals to newlyweds and part-time pet sitters.
Key Insights
During the research, several key insights were uncovered that directly shaped the app's features and user interface. Each insight led to specific app functionalities designed to enhance the overall experience and address the unique challenges faced by pet owners and sitters during their engagement on the platform. Here are the detailed insights and their respective solutions integrated into the APP.
Insight #1: Build trust by leveraging natural connections
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Many respondents said they had asked their neighbors to help with pet care. Because people have more trust in the communities they are familiar with.

Result:  Users can use the group feature to join their community or neighborhood group and connect with the right pet sitter in the group.
Insight #2: Communication relieves anxiety

Some pet parents experience heightened anxiety about being separated from their pets. However, feedback from pet sitters can give them a lot of peace of mind. This feedback includes informing the pet’s activity, sending photos or videos, or making calls in a real-time.

Result:  The live chat feature is a space that allows pet owners and pet sitters to communicate in a real-time. The chat interface can also allow users to transmit images or videos.
Insight #3: Improve mutual understanding helps both sides

Pet parents want to know about pet sitters’ personalities, experience in caring for pets, home environment, etc. It helps pet owners make decisions. Not only do pet owners want to know about pet sitters, but pet sitters also want to know about pet owners and pets. Learning more about pets will let pet sitters take better care of pets while caring for them.

Result:  The profile page allows users to present stories and descriptions about them and their pets. Both pet owners and pet sitters can set their profiles. Users can also set publicity or not in the privacy settings.
Information Architecture
The information architecture of the app is designed to cater to the specific needs of pet owners and sitters.Central to the design is the Personal Homepage, which acts as a hub, directing users seamlessly to essential functions like signing in, managing personal profiles, and accessing community groups. Detailed categorizations under the service tab allow users to specify their requirements, from pet type to service date and location, facilitating a tailored search experience that aligns with individual preferences.
Lo-fi Wireframe
I started the design by creating low-fidelity wireframes structured to provide a straightforward and guided user experience. Starting from the welcoming sign-in page to the detailed service selection, each screen is designed with minimal elements to focus the user’s attention on critical tasks, such as joining community groups, selecting services, and managing orders.
Logo Design and Color Palette
The element of the claw represents the theme of pet, and the element of the home icon represents warmth, love, care and community. The overall shape is round, making the logo more affinity.

Orange is set as the theme color to represent warmth, love, positivity and happiness. The use of gradient makes the app look more lively and light. Black is mainly used for text messages to improve the readability of the interface.

Deliverables

Wireframes
I designed the wireframes for FurryAT based on comprehensive user research. Simplicity and functionality are what I want to highlight through the app layouts to provide users with a seamless experience.
Login & Registration
Users can fill in personal ac-count information according to the guide, login, or register an APP account.

Recommendation
New users will see this page after they log in. The platform recommends to users the community they may be interested in. Users can view the details of the community and join the group they are interested in.
Select a Service
Based on previous research, the product provides three services: Boarding, Drop-In Visits, and Day Care. Users can choose the corresponding service items according to their own needs.
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Build Your Pet’s Profile
Users need to fill in basic information about their pets, for example, pet types, service dates, and location. Then, the platform will show the most suitable service provider based on user information.
Search
The platform provides users with service details according to the user's information. Users can view the results on the map or by list.
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Filter
Users apply filters to get better research results. The filter includes pet type, service, community, location, date, price, arranged order, etc.
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Sitter’s Profile
Users can browse pet sitters’ profiles for more details, including basic information, services they provide, available dates, reviews, etc.
Massages
It includes a list of notifications and chats. For example, it will show whether users are online or not. Users could also see if they have chat history before.

Chat
Users can chat with friends, contact pet sitters, or place orders here.
Groups
Users can search groups and check groups they have joined. At the same time, users can view intelligent recommendations about groups they may be interested in. Users can click to view group details and apply to join.

Group Details
On group detail pages, users can obtain information like location, introduction, group status (public or private), group rules, members, etc.
User's Profile
The profile page displays the level, collection of likes, wallet, order history, customer service, settings, etc.

Order History
This page shows order history, and users can order again.

Reflections

Every parent wants to find someone responsible and trustworthy to take care of their children when they are busy outside. As a parent of furry kids, I hope to find someone to take good care of them while I’m going out. Therefore, I’m glad my team and I had this opportunity to design a mobile APP that combines community features and a sitting service. Furthermore, I appreciated my team members for their support in industry analysis, user research, and business analysis.

If I have a chance to continue developing it, I will continue to improve community features to find a pet sitter in a more convenient and trustworthy way for users. The vision for this App is not only a platform where users can find a reliable pet sitter but also an online community where users can have trust and a sense of belonging with more users who are pet lovers.

Other Works

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