Tail Trail Case Study
Tail Trail is a mobile application for dog owners. I designed it to help busy pet owners search for, find, and connect with people who provide pet care services - primarily dog-walking.
Tools Used
Pen, Paper, Sticky notes, Figma, Google Docs, Dribbble, Survey Monkey.
My Role
My roles for this project included conducting UX and Market Research, Competitor Research, UX Writing, creating the Interaction and UI Design, and overseeing the User Testing phase.
Problem Statement
Due to busy schedules, many dog owners report that they do not get to walk their dogs as frequently as they want to, and they struggle to find reliable options to help them do so in their absence.
According to the American Insurance Information Institute, 68% of U.S. households own a pet, and over 58% are dogs. Dog owners want to ensure that their pets get enough care and exercise - this is why dog walking is a highly prioritised activity among them.
Tail Trail Design Process:
1. Research/Empathize.
2. Define.
3. Ideate.
4. Prototype.
5. Test.
6. Review/Improve
Research Phase
My research tasks included collecting general opinions of the concerned stakeholders, expanding on them through more in-depth interviews (user research through quantitative and qualitative analyses), reviewing relevant literature, and researching already-existing competing services (domain research through literature review and competitor analysis).
User Research
After polling and interviewing members of the targeted user groups, I discovered that the key concern when relating to the proposed service is building trust in the service providers. Other insights included:
Many owners are unsatisfied with the current frequency of their dog walks.
Most owners prefer to walk their dogs themselves, but they would rather have someone else do it in their absence than have the dogs miss a walk.
A smaller percentage of owners (inexperienced owners or people with large/special-needs dogs) do not walk the dogs themselves and always enlist other people to do it. They would, however, prefer to join the walks and learn tips and tricks from the professionals.
Many owners would rather have their dogs walked by family members, friends, or neighbours than total strangers from an app.
The inability to track walks or get updates from walks leaves a lot of owners feeling anxious and nervous.
Owners speak of pet care in holistic terms. Those who are new to app-based services would prefer to be able to access other services like veterinary care and grooming on the same platform.
Making friends for their pets is a top motivator for many owners.
Competitor Research
I analysed several competing services during the research phase of this project (including Bark, Rover, Pawshake, and Pet Backer).
Some of the key takeaways from this process were:
Their user interfaces were subtle, clean, and approachable, which was appropriate for such a service.
Some required users to complete the signup process or book one of the services immediately after accessing them. (This occasionally turned out to be a deterrent for users still trying to decide if they were the most suitable service for them).
Some of the researched apps also required users to enter details repeatedly for every new service they intended to book.
Users responded well to some of the features provided by the competition, such as having an "Explore" option, featuring images of pets prominently throughout the layouts, and multiple navigation options.
Reviewing the idea in light of the Research Phase
After concluding the inaugural round of research activities (researching competing service providers: Rover, Wag, Pet Backer, Pawshake, researching market statistics, interviewing over a dozen prospective users, and surveying several more), it became apparent that trust is the number one concern for dog owners when it comes to entrusting their pets to the care of a third party.
In addition to the need to vet their service providers, many dog owners expressed a desire to be able to track their activities with their pets in real-time. Other takeaways from the research phase include
1. Dog walking is almost universally prioritised among dog owners.
2. Many are unsatisfied with the current frequency of their dog walks.
3. Most dog owners would like access to secondary pet-care services (e.g. sitting and grooming) alongside dog-walking services.
4. Their current schedules may not always allow it, but many would love to be able to meet/walk other dogs through the service.
Definition Phase
In the definition phase, I focused on turning insights from the research phase into clear, actionable directions for the design process. The activities in this phase included brainstorming and idea generation, empathy mapping, and persona studies.
Empathy Mapping
After compiling notes from the brainstorming sessions, I organised the user feedback and research discoveries into an empathy map, highlighting what most users felt, thought, said, and did concerning the problem.
Persona Exploration
With the information gathered from the research and interviews, I created personas to embody the targeted users of the application.
Persona 1, Stephanie, represents the typical user of the application. A professional who, due to work or other circumstances, is too busy to walk their pet as frequently as they would like. Stephanie is focused on finding someone with a lot of experience whom she can trust with her dog and who has reliable availability. She would ideally like to be able to receive real-time feedback on the walks and is open to using the app to book other pet-care services.
Persona 2, James, represents the edge case that emerged in the research phase: pet owners who wanted to be able to book walks for their pets but also walk other pets in their free time. These were usually people who lived in multi-person households (either with housemates or family) that shared pet-care responsibilities among themselves. James wants to be able to book walks for his dog when his entire family is away from home/busy and to help walk other pets in his community to avoid over-exercising his.
Having these personas in place helped provide realistic representations of the target audience and gave a solid foundation for the establishment of the design goals for this project.
Ideation & Design
Some of my design goals were...
1. Improving the navigation process provided by current systems.
2. Simplifying the flow from searching to booking.
3. Providing ways for users to get in touch & establish trust with the walkers.
User Flow
Wireframes
Starting with the above user flow and wireframes, I was able to frame the user's journey, beginning in the onboarding stage and ending after the key path of booking a walk for their dog.
Visual Design
Prototyping & Testing
After testing the initial prototype, I made some significant improvements to the design. These included:
1. Adding a log section to the pet profile to help users keep track of their pets' walks and other activities.
2. Creating a hamburger menu to give them access to important user options, especially switching between their Pet Owner and Service Provider profiles.
3. Simplifying and improving the sign-up and sign-in flows.
Conclusion
Feedback
Testers of the prototype loved having pet profiles to save them the hassle of entering pet details before each booking and helping them filter out the exact service providers who matched their criteria. They also felt that the interface was approachable, easy to understand, and the main pieces of information in the interface were easy to locate.
Outcomes & Insights
Despite an abundance of similar options, users are always searching for products and services that can better solve their problems. An unwillingness to use a particular product is usually a symptom of a sub-par or overly complicated product.
There is a broad scope for innovation in this space, and I intend to keep researching and refining the current solution.
Thank you for your time.
Feel free to leave your comments or contact me on LinkedIn.