The Problem

Pawsr

Helping find the goods that our pets deserve

Roles

  • UX/UI Designer

  • UX researcher

  • Graphic Designer

Why? + User Research

Tools

  • Figma

  • Adobe Illustrator

  • POP | Marvel prototype

Pet owners often struggle to find reliable, unbiased information that is easy to understand when researching pet products. This is most common when researching food but can also include supplies related to grooming, enrichment, enclosures, etc.

There is an overwhelming amount of information and pet goods online, it can be a difficult task to sift through the information, know which sources to trust, and retain everything all at once.

People, especially younger generations, have become more aware of what they’re putting into their bodies (think organic, cruelty free, sustainable). Alongside that, they’re also becoming more aware of what they’re giving to their pets. A phrase that’s been going around with a similar sense is “pets are the new kids & plants are new pets”.

Pet owners had very similar methods of their research process into finding new products. Although everyone has their own way of doing things, they all mostly involved long, tedious processes to reach a decision for a product.

These steps were the most common when searching for an item for their pet(s):

  • Google Search (& refining search)

  • Searching on Reddit

  • Searching on TikTok or Youtube (and finding a reliable pet owner to follow on platform)

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What’s missing

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Pet owners shared similar priorities that included wanting to find pet products that were:

  • Affordable & easily Accessible

  • Safe for their pet

  • Healthy & helped maintain quality of life

  • Creditable & approved by other pet owners

Understanding the user

Creating a persona profile helped summarize the user research into something a bit more tangible & easy to understand. So did creating an empathy map!

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Ideation & Testing

  • Create sketched prototype

  • Guerilla usability testing

  • Finalize details

  • Sketching

  • Mind maps

  • & more ideating!

  • Low-fidelity wireframes

  • Attention to fonts, padding, component sizes early on

  • Testing and reworking screens for usability

Components & Design

High Fidelity Prototype

Click anywhere to interact. Objects highlighted blue indicate where you can click next

User Testing

5 participants were asked to complete a number or tasks that explore each feature of the app. From there I was able to see what was successful and what needed some adjusting.

Tags VS buttons

The primary color orange, was being used for multiple different functions. It was brought to my attention users could mistake the tags shown on a couple screens as buttons. To improve usability, I utilized the secondary color, blue, to clearly differentiate between these two functions.

‘Leave a review’ instances

The original button to leave a product was review was small and only placed on the product page once, right in the middle. The button was enlarged to match other component dimensions and a small icon was added for consistency.

A hyperlink was also added to the top of the page for a faster way to add a review. Users responded better when the review button had two locations for ease of access.

Before
After

Pawsr Rating Breakdown

Although users understood the function of the rating breakdown it did not appear as approachable & interactive as I had hoped. Additionally, the order of each category miscommunicated a sense of hierarchy. Presenting information as a list view gave users the sense that the category at the top was most important.

Because each category may have varying levels of importance I opted for a more interactive and approachable diamond of icons. Users can instead click on what they view as most important first and information is not crammed into one overwhelming page.

Before
After
Before

Takeaways

After

Pawsr Summarized

Pawsr has addressed the problem of unreliable and overwhelming information in the pet product industry by providing a trusted & accessible platform for pet owners to make informed decisions. By leveraging the power of community reviews and expert analysis, Pawsr has created a valuable resource that empowers pet owners to ensure the health and well-being of their animal companions.

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Challenges & Lessons Learned

One of the biggest challenges faced was integrating informational articles into a product-focused app, and making sure that they felt cohesive and not like separate entities. I also wanted the app to feel familiar, like I wasn’t reinventing the wheel even if the app didn’t have a close counterpart. Experimenting with familiarity gave me a deeper understanding of what users expect to find when they first open an app. It pushed me to create processes that were really streamline because test users could tell when something felt ‘off’ to them in a familiar space.

By experimenting with different design solutions and soliciting user feedback, I was able to create a more user-friendly prototype. This project taught me a lot about how every detail deserves equal attention, otherwise the whole design can be thrown off. Most ‘good’ design is invisible because it acts as we expect successfully, and therefore does not attract our attention. Design that doesn’t do as we expect however, does stand out and can create frustration and confusion. I got to consider the ways people interact with every aspect, if an element is an afterthought it shows

Overall I am grateful I learned so much about user experiences and am excited to implement my skills & insights into future projects.