Petminded
View Prototypes
The Opportunity
Petminded is currently a travel planning company for people looking to travel with their pets. In the age of COVID, the business wanted to rebrand to become a community focused on creating high-quality educational experiences for pet owners and their furry friends. Eventually, Petminded plans to build its own members only network behind a paywall, which will exist on a platform separate from the company’s main website. Our team was tasked with helping to facilitate the early stages of the rebrand through UX research and a redesign of the current Petminded site.
My Team
Lucas Zambelli, Michael Mallette, Yuki Mochizuki
Methods
Screener Survey | User Interviews | Affinity Mapping | User Persona Development | Problem Statement | Feature Prioritization (MoSCoW Map) | Design Studio | Competitive & Comparative Analysis | Prototyping| Iterative Testing | Usability Testing and Report |
Timeline
2 weeks
My Roles
UX Researcher | UX & UI Designer | UX Writer | Stakeholder Point of Contact
Phase 1: Research & Synthesis
To begin, our team wanted to understand our users as best we could. In doing so, we could validate or invalidate their need for the product Petminded’s stakeholders were hoping to pivot to. We conducted a total of 10 user interviews with current and potential Petminded users, asking them about their experiences as pet owners with community, events, and pet parenting.
Affinity Mapping
To synthesize the data from the interviews, we created an Affinity Map, which allowed us to identify themes and commonalities among our users’ likes, dislikes and behaviors.
Insights
Once we could see the trends in our data, we were able to draw a series of insights about our users’ goals, needs, bheaviors and pain points as pet owners.
Phase 2: Define
We used our insights to develop a User Persona, an average user of our product.
Goals:
• Find online pet communities that meet her unique needs
Needs:
• Well organized, credible pet information
• Activities for her and Noodle to do together
Pain Points:
• Doesn’t know what sources of info to trust
Behaviors:
• Socializes and commiserates with other pet parents
Dahlia’s Central Problem
Dog owners want to connect with like-minded pet parents who can help them find information on keeping their pet happy, healthy and socialized.
Dahlia is overwhelmed by the amount of advice online, and it’s difficult to determine if the information is coming from a trusted resource.
So we asked ourselves…
How might we help Dahlia find an online source of trustworthy pet advice and community?
Phase 3: Design
As a team, we listed out a series of features that could solve Dahlia’s problem, then prioritized them according to how much they would help her and how difficult they would be to implement. Every feature that we chose to put in the final product specifically addressed her needs, and brought her a step closer to joining the Petminded members only network.
Features:
Phase 4: Testing
We tested our prototypes of the new Petminded with 4 users. View the prototypes below:
Usability Testing Results:
TASK 1 (Mobile)
Find out if Petminded can connect you to a site with information on dog sneezing
4 / 4 users INDIRECTLY SUCCEEDED
TASK 2 (Desktop)
See what classes are coming up on Petminded
4 / 4 users SUCCEEDED
TASK 3 (Desktop)
Find a class recap
4 / 4 users SUCCEEDED
TASK 4 (Desktop)
Find out how this website works
4 / 4 users SUCCEEDED
TASK 5 (Desktop
Sign up for this site
4 / 4 users SUCCEEDED
Phase 5: Delivery & Next Steps
Our team developed a series of recommendations based on our usability testing results, user feedback, and future business goals
Eliminate the tagline “Pets • Community • Resources” above the hero image. It is misleading for some users.
Conduct a card sort to analyze and improve the site’s information architecture.
Personalize the Petminded experience: have users fill out a questionnaire about themselves when they land on the site, and offer them specific content tailored to their interests.
Integrate other kinds of pets into the Petminded experience. Currently, the product is focused on dogs, but users expressed interest in the content Petminded offers for their other pets as well.