HIRO.
Digital Pet Management App
Year
2022
Case Type
Business Project
Overview
HIRO. is a digital pet management app that offers users to keep basic health/wellness management for their furry friends. It focuses to build a foundation of consistent engagement loops that provides pet owners with daily activities, social interactions and experiences that better their pet’s life.
My Role
I was one of the UX/UI designers working on the product design from scratch in Feb 2022 with a team of UX lead, graphic designer, product manager (client) and offshore engineers. The design process contained 16 weeks, which includes user research to high-fidelity mockup design.
Problems & Goals
Business Perspective
Problem😔
The market is full of products that are too siloed in their focus, many are transactional, others are just manual trackers and none are able to marry online to offline. This doesn’t reflect an owner’s relationship with their pet — it’s anything but one dimensional.
Goals🎯
Create a unique, comprehensive, integrated pet care platform merging online-offline experiences, offering personalized plans, social connections, IoT integration, and educational resources.
User Perspective
Problem😔
Pet owners want to make the best decisions and are prepared for anything with the less extra effort so that they can maximise the time to share with their furry friends.
Goals🎯
Utilize a one-stop platform that is able to ease their effort in handling pet-related matters in order to save time and spend with their lovely pet.
Research & User Discovery
User Research
we conducted an international survey in UK, SG and HK about their feelings towards pet product and experience as well as their attitude and motivations towards pet ownership in general. 35 responses were collected and we established 5 key insights based on it.
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Member of the Family: millennials pride themselves on treating their pets like children (or better than children, in some cases). While seeing pets as part of the family isn’t exclusive to millennials, many view pet ownership as a way of preparing to have a family, or increasingly as a replacement.
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​Informed and Engaged: pet owners expect to be involved in treatment decisions for their pet, to have diseases and their effects on pet-wellbeing explained to them with the trade-offs — and, due to the proliferation of information online — don’t take what their veterinarian says as always being their pets best interest.​
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Social Creatures: pets are also increasingly becoming part of a person's personality/extension of them and their social life with many pet owners basing their social engagement around pets.​
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Authentic Connections: pet owners value authenticity when seeking information, but thanks to social media and blogs, prefer to research from more than one trusted source when searching for advice, reviews and recommendations for their pet’s well-being.​
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Self Improvement Focused: like in pet owners' own lives, they are conscious of personal growth and wellness. This extends to their relationship with their pet, considering their bond and relationship as a critical factor in their day to day happiness.
Define
Design Prespectives
During the research phase, we found out the 3 major perspectives of challenges that pet owners usually encounter - Health, Daily Necessities and Social & Entertainment. We defined our product’s navigation to focus on these directions to help our users.
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Friendly Reminders: a pet owners’ butler who create a destination that helps simplify day to day pet care.​
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Health Centre: a digital clinic is able to store pet’s medical records and receive health & medical advice.
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​Shoulder Burden: form of a partner, family member, friend, helper or a shelter and foster relationship that facilitates the sharing of data across multiple users for purposes of health, social and product purchases.
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​Exploration & Discovery: discover curated pet-friendly locations that offer time-based offers and discounts.
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​Gamification: caretaking could be hard but it is not painful. Regular engagement in turn benefits the lives of the pet.
Simplified User Flow for Pet Management
Design Prespectives
We conducted 2 rounds of user testing with iterations based on feedback, which proved our design direction is on the right track while the information architecture needs to be refined.
Iterations and Features Design
By providing a holistic platform that, at its core, is framed around better habits and incentivised engagement for pets and their well-being, we can establish continuous strong engagement loops that offer users relevant, valuable and delightful experiences. By doing so, we enable the platform the impetus to scale alongside a growing community of invested users.
Simplified User Flow for Pet Management
Cute graphics and well-guided instructions enhance users’ first impressions and feel familiar with how the products work.
Guardians and Caretakers
In many cases, pets might have more than one guardian or caretaker. Our product provides an easy method for users to invite guardians to share pet data and to-do-list through a simple email with a token link. It is a win-win mechanism to help users’ caretaking and expand the user base of HIRO.
Record Digitisation & Reminders
The linkage between medical records and reminders is connected in order to ease users' effort in creating schedules and reminders.
Blood opt-in and donations
In order to establish our local pet blood donation bank, the features of the blood donation center aim to educate users about the importance of blood donation and facilitate blood requests for emergency situations, allowing owners/clinics to find blood type matches that will help save lives.
Social Profiles and Check-in
To facilitate meaningful intention around social and community engagement to help be more involved in the life of pets and have more fun, users are able to see where people are hanging out, go and meet with other pet owners through our check-in feature and connect with each other via our QR based solution.
Discovery and Merchant Offers
Users are able to explore pet-friendly spots with the special offers provided by HIRO’s subscribed merchants.
Gamifications
Users will be incentivised to complete daily tasks and monthly challenges that reward users via HIRO and local merchants, which drive the growth of HIRO users’ loyalty and help HIRO establish business partnerships with merchants.
Next Phrase
Moving forward, we hand off our design to our offshore development team. While the app is designed as MVP (Minimum Viable Products) to adopt the user acceptance with the business objectives of HIRO. We believe more feedback will be received after the product launch and iterations will be further continued in-depth in order to provide a better user experience.
Reflection
We designed a unique digital pet management platform from the ground up to provide users with tools to manage their pets' basic health and wellness needs. As I reflect on the project, I have identified areas that could be improved to make the design process more comprehensive and successful.
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There were numerous challenges during the project, including budget and time constraints, as well as client-specific requests. As a result, it was not possible to conduct an in-depth user journey analysis to fully comprehend user behaviours and touchpoints. There was a risk of design misalignment and users' needs being overlooked due to this lack of understanding. Furthermore, the novelty of the product coupled with an uncharted market introduced complexities that needed to be carefully considered.
Possible alteration in 2023
My vision for 2023 recognizes some potential alterations to address these challenges. Early in the design process, a user journey analysis is crucial for mitigating the risks of design misalignment and potential dissatisfaction. Even when time and budget constraints are present, this step is invaluable for gaining an understanding of user behaviour, needs, and pain points. A smoother and more intuitive user experience can be achieved by identifying the user's journey and interactions.
Incorporating concepts from service design is another avenue I intend to explore. A holistic approach that considers every touchpoint and interaction within the user journey can greatly enhance the project's outcome. Through the integration of service design concepts, we can ensure that the digital pet management platform addresses not only user needs, emotions, and expectations, but also broader aspects such as user needs and emotions.
A specific improvement area involves the feature of blood opt-in and donations, which involves multiple stakeholders, including donors (pets), owners, and donation clinics. A detailed user journey is essential for features with such multifaceted functionality. It is important to establish this journey during the user research phase in order to guide the design process effectively. An overview of user touchpoints and interactions can assist in identifying potential entry and exit points by visually mapping the user experience. As a result of this clarity, users are able to achieve their goals without feeling frustrated. Additionally, data-driven decision making is enabled by the combination of user journey insights and analytics data. By examining user behaviours and interactions, we gain valuable insights into user preferences and potential pain points. This approach empowers the design process to be more informed and aligned with user needs.
In conclusion, reflecting on the past project's challenges has prompted me to embrace a more proactive and holistic approach for future design endeavours. The incorporation of thorough user journey analysis, particularly for intricate features involving various stakeholders, will help create a more user-centred and efficient design process. By doing so, the project outcomes can be further optimised to ensure a positive user experience and successful product launch.
Key Visual of the App
