Project: Adding a Feature
Duration: 80 hours
Role: UX/UI Designer
Rover.com is a popular online marketplace used to buy and sell pet care services for dogs and cats. I wanted to explore the concept of adding services for exotic and farm animals to their desktop website. This case study highlights my design process in adding this feature.
People love exotic pets.
Although it’s true that dogs and cats rein in popularity, many pet owners also enjoy owning exotic and farm animals. If this is the case, then why do pet sitting sites fail to acknowledge these pets?
Rover.com is designed for dogs and cats only— what are pet owners and pet sitters supposed to do if they own other animals? With this scenario in mind, I wanted to explore ways to make pet care more convenient for all pets.
Discover
Current State Audit
I began my research by conducting a current state audit to understand how other animals would currently fit into the website. I found several areas on the website that would need to be redesigned, as they require users to select dog or cat to continue.
Pricing is another issue that would be the most challenging feature to tackle. The way that Rover currently structures pricing is pretty nuanced, and a bit confusing, so it may be difficult to achieve easy-to-understand pricing when adding more subcategories.
Example of dog/cat selection
Example of pricing for house sitting
Competitive Analysis
To deepen my general understanding, I analyzed other pet sitting websites that also offer care for other species. While doing so, I kept some questions in mind:
What service do they provide?
What are their key features?
What niches are these competitors missing?
What type of user is this designed for?
What is an obstacle they have to overcome?
New customer needs?
Strengths?
Weaknesses?
Wag!
Fetch! Pet Care
Trusted Housesitters
Key findings
Wag! and Fetch!
Only cater to dogs and cats, similar to Rover.com.
Cannot create pet profiles for other types of animals.
Trusted Housesitters
Allows users to input all kinds of animals.
Categorizes animals in an effective way.
Could better communicate on the hero that their site accepts other types of animals.
User Interviews
Purpose of study
I wanted to understand how to best incorporate the option of adding other animals for both pet sitters and pet owners.
Objectives
Explore ways to add different types of animals without overcomplicating the process.
Identify any problems that could be solved for pet sitters and pet owners by adding this feature.
Understand any difficulties that pet owners may have in regards to getting care for other types of animals.
Understand any difficulties that pet sitters may have in regards to caring for other types of animals.
Participants
I conducted my interviews on 8 participants— 4 own animals other than dogs or cats and the other 4 have had experience pet sitting animals other than dogs or cats.
Research Questions
Pet owners
Where do pet owners currently find care for animals other than dogs and cats?
What qualities would owners search for in a pet sitter for these animals?
What differences are there in finding care for these animals?
Pet sitters
How do pet sitters currently get contacted to care for animals other than dogs and cats?
How does a pet sitter’s experience level with an animal influence them?
What differences in animal species influence a pet sitter’s willingness to care for them?
Analyze
Affinity mapping
I utilized affinity mapping to identify similarities between each user interview. By utilizing this strategy, it was easy to uncover key insights.
Key insights
Certain species are typically very low maintenance while others have more care needs
Pricing should match the difficulty of care
Pet sitters need the option to deny animals that they are uncomfortable with
Pet owners on Rover often fail to communicate with pet sitters about all of their animals (which may change if they had the option to add them)
Pet owners are hesitant to hire strangers online
User Personas
Based on the research, there were no significant distinctions among each group of pet owners and pet sitters. Therefore, two personas emerged; one for pet owners and one for pet sitters. The first persona is Amy The Exotic Pet Owner— Amy has a difficult experience finding pet care compared to those who just own dogs or cats. The second persona is the Julia The Pet Sitter— Julia is a pet sitter on Rover who usually watches dogs and cats.
Ideation
Task Flows
First, I wanted to identify which 3 task flows were most important to add more animals to. The first flow is adding a new pet to your profile. This is an action that pet owners complete and this information is then conveyed to pet sitters. The second flow is searching for a pet sitter. This action is also completed by pet owners— it begins on the hero page and then allows the user to select the pet sitter that they would like to contact. Lastly, I focused on viewing pet sitter prices. This also would require me to redesign the pet sitter profile.
POV & HMW
Next, I began exploring what features to add to these flows in order to address the needs and challenges of users. To achieve this, I created POV and HMW statements exploring ways to differentiate prices, decrease the hesitancy of pet owners when contacting pet sitters, and allow pet sitters to communicate about animals they are not comfortable with watching.
POV Statements
I’d like to explore ways to differentiate the price of caring for an animal based on its care needs because some pets of the same species may require more or less care.
I’d like to explore ways to make pet owners more comfortable with seeking help from online pet sitters because many of them are hesitant to hire strangers.
I’d like to explore ways to allow pet sitters to easily communicate with pet owners about situations that they are not comfortable with because some pet sitters do not want to watch certain animals.
HMW Statements
HMW allow pet owners to thoroughly input care tasks that need to be completed for their exotic and farm animals?
HMW allow pet owners to communicate the frequency of these care tasks?
HMW ensure that pet sitters are able to appropriately customize pricing for exotic and farm animals without making the nuances too confusing?
HMW communicate and justify extra costs to pet owners?
HMW establish pet sitters as more trustworthy to pet owners who only seek help from people that they know?
HMW best display a pet sitter's experience with exotic and farm animals on their profile while still highlighting their experience with dogs and cats?
HMW ensure that pet owners with difficult species that require more expertise can quickly see a pet-sitter’s experience level while searching among other sitters?
HMW allow pet sitters to share details about their specialized skill set in their profile?
HMW introduce a distinct rating or review system for exotic/farm animal sitters?
HMW allow pet sitters to best display which exotic and farm animals that they do not accept?
HMW ensure that pet owners properly document all of the animals that they own on their profile, including low maintenance pets?
HMW ensure that pet owners properly document specific needs for their animals, including details on their feeding, cleaning, and handling?
HMW encourage communication prior to the first meet and greet to ensure all requirements are understood?
Feature Prioritization
I narrowed down which features were most important to focus on. My goals were to redesign task flows to include other animals, facilitate better communication between owners and sitters, and to increase the trustworthiness of pet sitter profiles. Many of the “must have” features are already implemented on Rover, but need adjustments to apply to other animals.
Must Have
Customizable pricing
Species and type of animal
Frequency of unique care needs
Specification of animal type in reviews
Specify which animals & care needs are not accepted by pet sitters
Feeding, cleaning, and handling details
Experience displayed with type of animal
More personable sitter information
Search option without dog/cat button required to select
Nice to Have
Species specific experience badges
Experience badge quizzes
Confirm that ALL of their animals are listed, even if they are very easy
Messaging to justify extra costs
Certifications or courses
Reviews filtered by animal type
Video call option
Could Come Later
Photo reviews divided by animal type
Allow owner to send “interview questions” prior to requesting a booking
Messaging to reassure owners that certain animals will cost less
Tips to reduce costs
Design
UI Elements
In order to replicate Rover’s design, it was helpful to gather together visual references. This allowed for easier replication as I began designing. Using these screenshots, I was able to recreate elements more quickly.
Wireframes
Low Fidelity
On the home, I identified photos and text that needed to be changed and added more reviews. When adding a pet profile, I created more categories to select pets from and identified which care questions would need to be omitted or added. On the pet sitter profile, I added a personal information and hobbies section, specified animal type in reviews, and added more categories to accepted pets.
High Fidelity
I aimed to only make changes in necessary areas, ensuring that these changes matched the current aesthetic. With careful planning and consideration, I preserved the overall layout and look.
Prototype & Testing
Home & Search
On the home page, it is important to emphasize that other animals are included. To advertise this information, I added photos and reviews of more animals and changed the wording to be more clear. Then, I made edits to the search by omitting the requirement to select dog or cat, separating services by “In your home” and “In your sitter’s home”, introducing more filtering options, and adding a banner to communicate great matches.
Pet Sitter Profile
I kept the structure of the profile the same, but made changes to include more animals in relevant sections. Additionally, I added the animal species in customer reviews to showcase relevant experience, a personal information section (age, hobbies, etc.) to build more trust with hesitant pet owners, and indicated if a pet sitter is a “great match” to simplify figuring out if the pet sitter accepts your animals.
Pet Sitter Pricing
By adding several animals to the site, this complicates pricing. To avoid confusion while still allowing pricing to reflect animal difficulty, I standardized a base rate for all animals. I also reorganized some of the rates, added more tooltips, and made easy animals cheaper to add on. To better organize this information, I separated types of services into tabs.
Add New Pet
Lastly, I designed the option to create pet profiles for different types of animals. I separated these animals into categories (dog, cat, farm, bird, reptile, rodent) and included subsequent care task questions relevant to each category. This allows users to easily create personalized pet profiles with detailed care instructions.
Usability Testing
I remotely conducted moderated testing with 4 participants, observing their processes on screen share. All participants showed confusion around pricing. I tested to see if they could properly calculate different pricing scenarios, but their answers varied drastically. To resolve this, I redesigned how pricing is displayed.
Pricing Before
Initially, I attempted to make pricing easy to understand by separating rates into different categories. In the main box, I included the different base rates for each animal, along with the holiday rate and cost for extended care. Then, I created an accordion for additional rates. In the additional pets box, this is the amount that is added onto the base rate per additional animal. Then, a box for additional services such as bathing a pet.
Pricing After
These categories were confusing to users, as there are too many base rates and confusing additional charges. In response, I simplified pricing and added several tooltips for clarification. Rather than having different base rates, I made the base rate the same for all animals. Although it would be nice to allow more customization, too many variations of the base rate per animal is confusing and renders the “base rate” pointless.
I also got rid of the accordion, as it may be easier to understand the price of “additional pets” if they are positioned directly underneath the base rate for that animal. Then, I kept additional rates in a separate box directly below.
What I Learned
The importance of usability testing.
When designing a new layout for pricing, it was very difficult to decipher if the design made sense. I did several iterations on the organization of pricing, but still could not be certain that it made sense. By having our participants calculate prices for various combinations of pets, I quickly found out what wasn’t working.
The joy of creative constraints.
Rover.com is an established company with consistent UI throughout the site. Although it can be freeing to have full creative control over a new product’s design, it was especially fun for me to use existing constraints to create features that were cohesive with the overall design.
The advantage of understanding a product.
Since I have experience on Rover.com as a pet sitter, I have an intricate understanding of how the site operates. Due to this, it was much easier for me to make informed design decisions. The site has many features and details that may be difficult to redesign without a solid understanding of them.
Future Directions
I’d like to conduct more rounds of usability testing on pricing so that I could solidify a design that makes the most sense to users. It would also be worth exploring a feature that calculates the price as the user views pricing on each pet sitter’s profile.
This design does not include every species or type of animal. In the future, it would be worth exploring how to add other possible pets into the design such as fish, hedgehogs, ferrets, insects, etc.
In the context of housesitting, people often ask sitters to complete additionally tasks for them (retrieve mail, water plants, etc.) It would be cool to explore this topic as well.
