PET TREK
THE PROBLEM
People struggle to find quick and accurate information when planning a trip with their pets.
DURATION
4 weeks
TOOLS
Adobe CC, Miro, Google Suite
CLIENT
UX Bootcamp Project
THE SOLUTION
Pet Trek is a travel-planning app that helps users plan an entire pet-friendly road trip in just a few clicks
ROLE
Research, Strategy, Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping, Designing
PROCESS
RESEARCH
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
I conducted some research on apps that would be considered competition for Pet Trek. It was important to see what already exists, what the current pain points are and what problems Pet Trek could solve.
USER INTERVIEWS
From this research, I was able to gather the main pain points in the process of planning a trip with a pet. Users said that the three most important things they consider when traveling with their pet are:
Gathering and bringing the correct supplies
Finding pet-friendly lodging
Planning adequate rest stops/potty breaks
EMPATHY MAP
I took all of these findings and mapped them into an Affinity Diagram and then Empathy Map, determining what a user might think, say or feel about the travel planning process.
USER PERSONA
Using the Empathy Map, I created a user persona to summarize the main pain points and desires of the users I researched. This persona will be used to determine how I design Pet Trek.
DEFINITION/IDEATION
Pet-owners like Jennifer struggle to find quick and accurate information when planning a trip with their pets. Whether they’re planning a trip ahead of time, or making a spontaneous decision, they need access to quick information on pet-friendly accommodations for their travels.
How might we decrease the amount of time it takes to find accurate and updated information on traveling with a pet so that pet-owners can plan a trip with their animals?
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION
After researching and defining the problem, I used my findings and the potential competitor apps (BringFido and BarkHappy) to research features Pet Trek should have. I then plotted these features on a Moscow Matrix to determine which would be easiest and most important to implement on the first iterations. Future testing would determine the rest of the features.
PROTOTYPING
PAPER PROTOTYPE
After determining the features of the app, I took pen and paper and sketched the wireframes of individual screens of Pet Trek. This helped me visualize the app before I built it digitally.
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
In Adobe XD, I wireframes the screens of the app using the paper prototype I had just drawn. I prototyped buttons so that the user could move through the flow of the app easily.
Click to view video of low fidelity prototype flow.
TESTING
THE LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE WAS TESTED ON 4 DIFFERENT USERS.
The main things I was testing for:
Can users create a trip from start to finish?
Do users understand how to navigate the planning flow?
Can users add multiple stops to their trip?
The three main pain points users had when testing the low-fidelity app:
Users were confused by how to navigate through onboarding process
Users were confused by the idea of planning different kinds of stops
Users didn’t understand the initial starting location
ITERATING
Based on the feedback I got from the user tests, I decided to…
Make onboarding a little more clear that it’s a tutorial/introduction
Indicate starting location of trip before planning is started
Have an option to plan things while already on the trip (on the trip vs planning ahead, then an option for start location/dates)
Have a progress bar at the bottom with different icons to see how much planning you’ve done/how much you have left.
Easily maneuver back to a different spot in the planning process
FINAL THOUGHTS
FURTHER ITERATIONS
See stops on map view
Add navigation feature/search along current route
Plan trip while user is already on trip
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
I didn’t know an app like this existed prior to research. Had to find a way to make it unique
Need to do more competitor research before creating future projects
Pet Trek would need to find it’s own “niche market”
RESEARCH IS KEY
I was ready to jump in and start designing before researching, but glad I researched.
User research is key ingredient to design process, INFORMS design
Every part of UX process flows out of the user research discoveries
