Case Study
PawSaver
The Project
PawSaver is a platform that allows users to easily find affordable pet care, as well as solutions to help them manage expensive veterinary care.
Role: UX designer & researcher
Team: Individual project
Duration: 8 weeks
Tools: Figma, otter.ai
Designed for: iOS
The process
1
2
3
4
RESULT
ACTION
SITUATION
TASK
1
Situation
As a pet owner I know that pet care can be expensive in today’s economy, especially emergency pet care.
That’s how the idea of PawSaver came to life.
To gain more insight, participants were recruited for interviews where they were asked a series of questions regarding their pets: How they manage to budget care for their pets, if they have ever had to make any difficult decisions based on pet care affordability, etc.
Our research found that 100% of participants said their main pain point when it comes to pet care is veterinary prices.
Individuals fitting the following criteria were recruited for interviews:
Under 50k/year salary
Between 25-50 years of age
Primary caregiver for a pet
Residing in Canada
2
Task
How might we help lower income individuals provide their pets with the necessary healthcare needed, so that they can keep their pets healthy within their financial means?
3
action
During the initial research phase for this project, I came across many different grants and subsidies offered by different non-profits, charities and government organizations across Canada.
Judging by the feedback we received during our interviews prior to development, it was clear that many pet owners do not know that there are solutions out there to help them afford veterinary care.
For this reason, the primary purpose of PawSaver is to connect users with solutions tailored to their needs and location.
Keeping in mind that searching for any sort of pet care can be stressful, keeping the design of this app simple and playful was of the utmost importance.
This translated to the first sketches created for the app which aimed to keep the information clear and concise, as well as keep users informed of where they were at all times.
homepage
customized search
grant application page
search result page
4
mid-fidelity prototype
During development two rounds of user testing were held where valuable feedback was provided by participants that helped identify improvements to the design such as replacing drop down boxes with search bars, introducing a tracker so users can see updates of any applications they’ve submitted, as well as informational overlays to explain why certain the app asks the user for certain information.
result
After multiple rounds of research, testing and iterations, a final version of PawSaver came to fruition. The final design (for now) of PawSaver allows users find solutions to help they afford veterinary care that is tailored to their location and pets needs. Users would be able to find these solutions via a simple questionnaire they would answer to help the algorithm generate results tailored to the user’s responses. Aside from simply finding the solution, they can also see all the details of the search results, as well as apply to any grants or subsidies that generate for them and suit their needs.
In my opinion there’s never truly a “final” version of anything, everything is always evolving and able to be updated and made better. For future versions of the app I’d like to see AI incorporated to narrow down solutions for users rather than a questionnaire. I’d also like to see other features fleshed out such as aiding users in finding affordable pet sitting, pet food, and a community option for users to share resources with each other.
This was the first project I worked on completely on my own and I’ve learnt that it’s important to have other opinions when creating user experiences, even if we have research readily available. It wasn’t easy creating PawSaver on my own and looking back there are a few design choices I would change, but I’m proud of the end product considering it was my first solo project. Here’s to future projects!
thanks for sticking around!
What’s next?
Responsive Marketing website
Responsive Marketing website
To promote PawSaver I created a conceptual responsive marketing website that allows potential future users to see all that PawSaver has to offer!
What’s next?
The journey to completing this project was full of blood, sweat and tears, but it was also a journey of growth and discovery.
Can any design ever really be 100% complete and never to be touched again? No!
For next steps I would love to do user testing on the high-fidelity version and further discover what features PawSaver could include to further assist pet owner’s.
Here’s to the future and what exciting things it may hold!
wait! before you go…
multi-platform challenge
To further better user experience, I created a desktop version of PawSaver, so that user’s could browse and search for their various pet care needs from the comfort of their laptops.