Be Local, Pet is an app designed for dog lovers who move to a new place or travel to unfamiliar places with their pets.
This app is community-based, where people can provide and get trustworthy information, participating actively in helping other pet lovers with different issues related to their fur children.
Be local, Pet allows users to find and reach hospitals, veterinarians, pet shops, pet-friendly recreation parks, restaurants, and bars.
Clients: Alexia Recchi (CEO) Astrid Lustig (Head of Content).
Project Length: 9 days.
Team members: Caterina Canale-Mayet, Pika Stih, Clotilde Fourrier.
Roles: UX Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer.
Format: Native App.
Tools: Figjam, Figma, Maze, Google Forms, pen and paper.
Overview
The Challenge
“When we moved to settle in the big city with our pet, we faced the anxiety of not knowing the best places to go with our dog. We also didn’t have anyone to ask, as we hadn’t made friends yet. That was the starting point of Be local, Pet.”
Initial Limitations
The stakeholder’s idea was only in an initial stage, which we found challenging. However, this proved to be an exciting opportunity for innovation and creativity, as we had the freedom and opportunity to create a project from the very base foundations upwards.
They lacked a clear business plan or any quantitative research about the need for this product in the market. This aspect was a challenge for us designers due to the absence of this crucial elementary information or KPIs from the client end to guide the outcomes.
Empathizing
We performed research based on the initial requirements by asking cat and dog owners who match the user criteria: what were the things they struggled with the most when arriving in a new place or when they got their pets for the first time? In which ways did they get this information? Is there a need for this app on the market?
6
In-depth Interviews
2
Surveys
38 Answers
6
Competitors Analysed
From Pet Owner to Pet Lover
We built two user personas considering all the problems and needs we found.
During the project, we came back to the user definition, narrowed them down to one user, and let the edge cases accommodate themselves in the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
We framed it as a pet-lover rather than a pet owner following this twist. We understood that most of our target group is dedicated and passionate pet owners that strongly care about their furry children.
“Sometimes it is challenging to find reliable services when it comes to my dog needs.”
Defining
The Problem…
Pet lovers who are new in a city need reliable ways to find pet-friendly places, services, and information for their pets based on their location, as they don’t yet have these connections in the city and want to make sure they get reliable sources.
What are the jobs this app has to be done?
Challenges During The Design Process
When we were developing the first stage of the prototype, we realized we were disoriented. We didn’t know how many problems to solve due to a lack of prioritization. We were concerned we were not solving a real need. We found many issues the app could fix and many solutions to them. However, the main problem wasn’t identified correctly.
As a result, we narrowed our personas to only one, and we encircled the lack of trustworthy information as our main problem. That helped us to filter the essential ideas from the secondary ones.
Ideating
The Brainstorming session produced a bunch of ideas (keeping in mind what the stakeholder requested) that were grouped by concept similarity due to the large amount of them. In this way, we classify them by the MoSCoW prioritization method. We defined the ideas that should and must this new app have.
Prototyping and Testing
Mid-Fi Prototype (25 Answers)
Hi-Fi Prototype (17 answers)
The Design Solution
We realized the need for the original product required by our stakeholders was fulfilled in other ways such as through Facebook groups, Google, references from friends, etc. Therefore it wasn’t an urgent or a big market for this. However, the importance of creating this product was helpful to our users.
On the other hand, the need to contact other pet owners to ask questions through a support forum of Q&A, and a local network of pet owners giving local news regarding their pets, for instance, is the added value of this product, the concept of the local community.
The Final Prototype
What Is Next?
What the client has in mind
- Add discounts and collaborations with pet businesses.
- We are organizing events to increase trust.
- Implement trustworthiness badges from users to other users.
What the UX team recommends for a future sprint
- Improve filtering options for location — specifically, where the user wants to look for places.
- Improve searching options to look for services — Work on refining categories, filters, and visual map iconography.
- Improve categories management in the community section — once the community grows, will be countless questions to categorize and manage. How will users search for question-answers?
- Save your favorite places and comments.
- Inclusion of pet sitters recommendations.
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