Project:
Pet food store app design for pet owners on mobile devices
Duration:
January 2022 to May 2022
Role:
UX/UI Design | Research
Pliplip is a dedicated mobile app that sells food for all kinds of pets with enough variety for different budgets and provides all the information needed to give the pets the nutrition they deserve.
Working pet owners lack time to find and buy the proper food for their pets' needs, considering a nutritional diet or health conditions.
Design an app that allows users to quickly identify and buy the right products for their pets at a fair price.
I interviewed people from 25 to 56 years old to cover two generations of users; I created empathy maps to capture the most relevant information that would be later segmented into two different Personas.
The primary user group are young adults who are digital natives and have a strong take on pet’s health.
Initial assumptions were disproven, as I thought that all groups were going to prioritize price above all, instead being quality despite of its price or a mix of both.
Interviewing users revealed that they do research themselves (or ask for expert’s advice) to learn what the best foods are for their pets, and the need for high protein foods was a common topic among all interviewees.
The benchmark reviewed two local apps and two international apps to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
While Laika, a local app, did many things well, their checkout process was tangled and unintuitive, with many prompts that made the experience poor at the very end of the main purchase flow.
Best for Pets had a poor user experience in most terms, as it was hard to understand where to start, where to go and the responsiveness and interaction left a lot to desire. However, their checkout process was simple, smooth and the product's information was rich and informative.
The international apps had an overall good user experience, with Chewy taking the lead in most cases, specially with how the app was organized and structured.
I took note of the highlights of these apps to consider for my design, as well as to avoid falling in their same mistakes.
Jake is very conscious of living a healthy life and wishes the best for his pets, but he buys things in a rush due to his limited time.
He wants to find the most nutritional food available for his pets whatever the cost, but as fast as possible to have free time to spend with his partner or for hobbies.
Claudia has a big family, which is expensive, so she tries to get the most affordable food while being decently nutritive for her pets.
She isn’t a native digital user, so navigating on her phone is a constant fight and would like to have a simpler way to feed her pets, as going to the stores isn’t the best since she has trouble lifting heavy bags.
Users want their pets to be well nourished and healthy.
Users want the commodity to stay home when buying.
Users want quick and simple processes to optimize their time in the app.
I sketched variations of the home screen trying to find a way to display all the pet categories in a clear way.
Navigation is a pain point for users, as being redirected to different screens can be disorienting.
My design solves this by using overlays for viewing products and a clean home screen with clear interactions.
I received a lot of feedback when doing user testing. I had to change many things from my designs and did two rounds of testing, one with a LoFi prototype and the second one with refined designs.
The first round of feedback focused mostly on the main user flow and visual cues, as some aspects weren't clear enough, partly by it being a low fidelity design, but that were needed to be addressed and, as such, were introduced on the following iteration:
Unclear icons
Users want visual guidance that's easy to understand.
Uncommon wording
Users need simple and easy to understand language.
Inconsistent features
Users need features that add to the app's main purpose.
On the second round of the study, with a HiFi prototype, users helped reveal aspects that were still confusing or needed improvement to finalize the design:
Catalog
Users want the 'Add to Cart' button visible right away.
Unintuitive return
Users were confused on how to go back from search bar.
Filters
Users want more alternatives for advanced filtering.
The app lets users complete a purchase without them needing to put much effort, while still being able to show which foods are best for their pets thanks to the main components visualization.
A quote from a study interviewee:
“It’s very visual and intuitive, with the pet categories I didn’t even had to think to know where to go and that’s a relief!”
Usability studies were mind blowing experiences for me, as I had to fight against my own biases after seeing how what I thought of as ‘common knowledge’ wasn’t common, and what I thought was unnecessary was a total must for some users, which opened my mind and led me to improve my designs more and more on each iteration.
