there will be no more poorly fed pets with digestive problems?
User Interviews, Empathy Maps, Pain Points, Personas and User Journey Maps to inform design decisions.
User Flow, Object Mapping, CTA inventory to figure out the structure and main flows of the app.
Paper Wireframes, Digital Wireframes, Prototypes and User Tests to evaluate the app's usability and identify weak points.
Hi-fi prototype, Accessibility Standards and Mockups to prepare the prototype for a handoff.
1. Conduct
User Interviews
2. Build
Empathy Maps
3. Define
Pain Points
4. Create
Personas
5. Create User
Journey Maps
To better understand the user's needs, I conducted online user interviews with 5 pet owners who cared about their pets' health and nutrition. After that, using the recordings of the interviews, I created empathy maps of what the pet owners feel, think, say and do. I analyzed information from empathy maps and found 4 main user pain points.
PAIN POINT 1
Multiple owners
When there’s more than 1 pet’s owner, complications arise: how to follow one feeding schedule, how to make sure nobody gave unnecessary treat, how to keep track of food eaten?
So the app will allow multiple owners to be connected to one pet, so that they can receive feeding notifications and always stay informed of their pet nutrition updates.
PAIN POINT 2
Lack of consistency
Some pet owners struggle with feeding their pets regularly. They keep changing the time of the pet’s meal that makes it more difficult to track their nutrition and can cause digestive problems in future.
So the app will allow scheduling the meals and will notify the pet owner when it's time to feed their fur friend.
PAIN POINT 3
Unreliable info sources
Some pet owners struggle to make a decision in favor of one food brand due to the lack of reliable information about pets’ healthy nutrition, or the abundance of contradictory facts.
So the app will provide general feeding recomendations to pet owners based on their pet's age, breed and physical condition and will analyze the contents of the food their pet eats to ensure it meets the standards.
PAIN POINT 4
Digestive Problems
Some pets have medical conditions that need professional care. Not all the owners can afford consultation of a qualified nutritionist either due to financial reasons or because of the lack of access to such professionals.
So the app will give pet owners the access to hundreds of professional pet nutritionists. Pet owners will be able to chat with them or have video consultations at a reasonable price.
Personas were created to inform design decisions and to help me keep the focus on the users' needs.
Meredith's Persona informed adding Nutritionist Page.
It's easy and intuitive for her now to schedule consultations or to just chat with nutritionist on the go.
John's Persona informed adding scheduled meals and "Who fed" indicator.
Now he can see who and when fed his cat and it's super easy to be on schedule with his cat's feeding.
Mary's Persona informed adding Nutrition Analysis feature.
Now she can easily see whether her puppies get enough nutrients and get general feeding recommendations.
Working on user journeys revealed areas in the app where users can experience negative emotions, and provoked us to find a way to improve those areas, as well as to enhance positive experiences with the app.
Mapping Meredith's user journey revealed how Nutracker app would assist owners of pets with special nutritional needs.
Mapping John’s user journey revealed how Nutracker app would assist couples in tracking their pet’s nutrition together.
Mapping Mary’s user journey illustrated how helpful NuTracker app would be for pet owners
who are trying to find the right food for their pets.
After creating user journey maps, it was time to think through the overall structure of the app as well as the precise user flow to make sure everything the user needs is included in the app and the flow is seamless and logical.
1. Design
User Flow
2. Perform
OOUX
3. Make lo-fi and
hi-fi CTA Inventory
Creating User flow process was super confusing for me and didn’t provide me with enough clarity for proceeding to the next step of the project.
It happened because the overall structure of my app was not sequential, it was too complex for that.
When dealing with the user flow, I was thinking about the task user needed to do and led him from the start till the finish, very logically and predictably. In reality, however, due to the matrix structure of the app, the user's behavior will be completely different.
OOUX helped me realize what objects I need to include in my app and how they will be connected to each other.
When the object mapping was done, I created lo-fi CTA inentory using sticky notes. To each object I added possible actions represented by green color.
Later, I created the hi-fi CTA in google sheets, to identify the most important actions that should be included in the app based on their Level of Effort and Priority
Hi-Fi CTA inventory document
1. Create Paper +
Digital Wireframes
2. Create
Lo-Fi Prototype
3. Test
Lo-Fi Prototype
4. Create
Hi-Fi Prototype
5. Test
Hi-Fi Prototype
While transferring paper wireframes into digital format, I made some changes to the design to reduce clutter and make the most important elements more visible.
I conducted 2 rounds of usability studies. Findings from the first study helped guide the design from wireframes to mockups. The second study used high fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the hi-fi prototype needed refining.
1. Hi-Fi
Prototype
2. Accessibility
3. Mockups
To start designing Hi-Fi prototypes, I created a mood board that helped me to define the overall style and colors of the app. Sticky sheet with main elements helped to stay consistent with designs.
In our design, I implement high contrast to help color blind users and users with low contrast sensitivity. All content meets WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.3.
In NuTracker, I utilize hierarchy to help people who use assistive technology. Every page can be navigated sequentially and meet WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.3.
I paid attention to the size of interactive elements to ensure flawless interaction for every user. All tappable elements meet WCAG Success Criterion 2.5.5.
My takeaways from the project.
TAKEWAY 1
Scope
As it was my first project, I tried to think about everything at once and solve all problems pet owners have with their pets’ diet. After finishing the project I now realize that for any real-life project to be successful, choosing the right scope is the key. It will not only save time, but also ensure good quality of the product, given the scope was chosen correctly. In my case, the scope could be minimal, it was a training project and even if I chose only to help people monitor the time their pets eat, it would be enough to practice all the aspects of UX Research and Design.
TAKEAWAY 2
Diverse group
I can’t stress enough how lucky I was to find a rather diverce testing group in terms of age and gender, but next time I will try my best to recruit even more diverce user test participants. The more different the people I interview are, the better the quality of the data I collect is and the brighter are insights and findings.
TAKEWAY 3
Consistency in design
I learned it the hard way but it’ll then will better stick with me, I guess! Next time I design the app I will spend time on creating a proper design system. Making components and organizing them properly, organizing typography, various buttons, and icons - it’ll help so much for teamwork. And even if I work alone, It’s such a life-saver to have a sticker sheet on hand and be able to edit 1 component and see this element change automatically throughout the whole document.
