Enterprise software system for animal welfare groups — a UX/UI case study
Impacting pet lives with UX design.
This case study on the enterpirse software system is a documentation of a pro bono project for a client — PetWidge, undertaken during the UXDI immersive course in General Assembly, Singapore.
This design sprint took us 3 weeks and covers UX Research ( User Interviews, SME(subject matter expert)Interviews, User Personas, Competitive Analysis), Feature Prioritisation, Wireframing, Prototyping, Interface and Interaction Design with AxureRP followed by Usability testing.
The Challenge
Adopting the Design Thinking/Lean UX/Agile method, Our team took on the massive challenge together to design and custom-build an enterprise software prototype, backed by extensive user research and a clear understanding of the AWG (Animal welfare group) ecosystem.
Background Story
It all began in 2016, when Ivan Loh, the owner of Pet Widget lost his two beloved dogs while he was on a trip overseas. He had to rush back home and it took him almost two weeks to find his lost pets. He went on to create the pet widget tag and app to help owners find their lost pets. Along the way, he uncovered bigger issues that lead to abandoned pets- fragmented ecosystem, siloed communication and lack of accountability. This lead to the idea of creating a platform for pet management. He met with our team to discuss the possibilites of this idea.
Our Team
We are Joyani (Joan, Yan, and Harini), a group of passionate, purpose-driven and creative UX designers. We employ a human-centered design thinking approach to solve complex social challenges efficiently and effectively.
My Role
The team comprised of three UX Designers — Harini(myself), Joan and Yan. I took the role of UI/UX designer and collaborated with the team to find deep insights, conceptualize, ideate and create one of a kind enterprise software.
Agenda
With a time frame of 3 weeks, we broke the sprint into user research, understading the ecosystem, defining the features and designing the experience. We went through 3 rounds of sprints to develop a hi-fi prototype of the enterprise software.
User Research and Key Takeaways
User Interviews
Based on the brief from our client, the first thing we did was conduct user interviews by visiting owners, volunteers, shelter managers across different animal welfare groups in Singapore to get more insights on their day-to-day services and operations. We also interviewed SMEs (Subject matter experts) to validated a lot of our assumptions from the brief.
Key Takeaways
We had 3 important takeaways in understanding our target AWGs users’ behavioral patterns and motivational goals.
1. Many AWGs are run by volunteers who hold day jobs.
2. Some of AWG’s users like the rescue officer or volunteers are always on the go and on the field.
3. AWGs users have various IT competency levels and are quite resistant to technology.
(Our user interview guide — image can show a flow as a gif)
Personas
Based on our user research, we identified our AWGs users and we represented them using personas.
Understanding the Ecosystem
We employed methodologies and tools like service blueprint, competitive analysis and created a matrix of existing tools to dig deeper and understand the problems at an ecosystem level.
Service Blue Print
A holistic and clearer way to understand the different services and process of AWG and also help us to identify the gaps and opportunities and also helps us empathise with our users in the entire journey of their various operations.
We chose service blueprints to understand the services and both onstage and backstage workflow of AWGs of various sizes by included the key stakeholder involved so as to help us empathise with our user at each stage of the service flow and also get a deeper understading of the gaps and pain points that affect the way AWGs handle animals.
Key Takeaways
After synthesising our service blueprints, we uncovered gaps and opportunities in the way AWGs function.
1. All AWGs still use primitive paper documentation methods to handle animal files etc.
2. These paper documents are usually unorganised and cumbersome to handle.
3. The biggest paint point is that in a situation when the documents get lost they are not easily traceable and no one stands accountable.
4. Following these primitive methods has also lead to a gap in communication between staff/volunteers when handling an animal case or when following up with vaccination and checking the location of the abandoned animal.
5. Overall the day-to-day process across AWGs lack structure.
Competitive Analysis
BizBark
After days of searching for software systems that cater to AWGs, we could not find anything in Asia. However, we stumbled upon the app called Bizbark, an enterprise system for pet-related businesses to manage their everyday services, customers and operations.
We did a LEMURS heuristic evaluation and conducted a usability test with a subject matter expert to evaluate the usability of this dashboard. We found that the app lacks onboarding and is not easily learnable. The different features and functions are not intuitive for the users to understand and use.
eVetpractices
We also found indirect competitors like eVetpractices, a platform for vets and pet owners to keep track of a pet’s health record. However, this platform does not cater to an overall ecosystem.
The Matrix of Existing Tools
After understanding the various gaps in AWGs service flows from the service blueprints, we went to analyse the various tools that were currently being used by the AWGs to manage their day-to-day operations. We developed a matrix (as shown below) to evaluate the effectiveness of these tools based on ease of use and extent of customisation. This matrix was also used to display where we envision the Pet Widget platform to stand.
A New Discovery
After digging deeper into all the qualitative and quantitative research data, we had a new discovery that helped us to set a strategic direction and define a vision statement for this project.
What did we find?
1. that Users in the AWGs are resistant to change because — they are happy with their existing way
2. Any software systems out there are complex and do not cater to the needs of the AWG’s users.
3. Most of the AWGs have mainly focused on getting donations and attracting volunteers and have not given a thought about succession planning for their organisation.
Setting a Vision
We set a strategic vision as we built this novel product in the market.
To enable all users in the ecosystem to scale, expand and educate for the long-term purpose of succession planning.
Feature Prioritization
After setting the vision for the product, we did a design studio ideation exercise to come up with the list of feature ideas that will be used in the software to help the AWGs. The features were then categorised based on level of priority — Must have, Should have, Can have and Won’t have. We went through 3 rounds of sprints to incorporate these features.
Site Map
We developed a site map before starting the wireframes. With the information from the MVPs and service blueprints, we drew the sitemap before we visualize what the screens and the defined features would look like.
Designing the Experience
This enterprise software was built with the focus on pet/animal profiles and aimed at supporting the various user roles in Animal Welfare Groups and other stakeholders in managing their day-to-day operations and services.
Design Style Guide
Based on the brief, we were given fixed fonts and colours to work with. The style guide went through many iterations as we did a lot of testing of colour contrast and fonts (considering accessibility) and came up with a colour palette that seemed to work the best.
Prototype
After multiple rounds of sketching and low-fi prototype usability testing, We developed an interactive prototype in order to understand if the users would like or dislike certain aspects of the enterprise software. This enterprise platform that you see below is modular, scalable and flexible and it has been built from scratch. A one of a kind platform you have never seen in the market.
Click here to view the hi-fi Axure prototype.
Usability Test & Findings
We conducted a usability testing of the software with 3 users from different AWGs by assigning them with specific tasks. Some of the key insights from the testing are shown below in the feedback capture grid.
1. Likes — All three users like the feature of instantly being able to create a new animal profile as a way to document new cases. The also found the predictive search to be used to quickly search for animal profiles or employees. The most cherished feature was the activity history display on an animal profile.
Apart from these the tooltip featured was liked by users as it helped them to understand what to find inside each widget.
2. Questions — had some questions related to what does each access term means under partner type.
3. Criticism — Users also critiqued and gave us some suggestions to work on. Users wanted words below icons to understand what it means.
They were confused with rescue and creating animal when there is a rescue case, they don’t understand the “plus sign” and also felt that it was not prominent.
4. Ideas — Users also shared some ideas on the lines of a ledger system with a notification live update sync of animals with assigned volunteers.
It put a smile on our face :)
“ This system is totally idiot proof and when are you getting this software live. Go on give me more tasks to do.”
- an animal shelter owner.
Moving Ahead
Capturing the joy on the users face when they use the system, definitely made it the most fulfilling project we worked on during our time in general assembly. Based on the feedback from the users, we would like to move ahead by doing more qualitative and quantitative research to improve and work on the features for the platform
1. Access level rights — We need to conduct more user interviews across AWGs to get a deeper insight on the user roles vs access rights.
2. Data Analytics and Visualisation — We could also get more insights on what key information could be highlighted on the dashboard. eg. Performace of the rescue department.
3. Notification System — Based on some feedback from the owners and volunteers, we would consider developing a notification system to send reminders/ notification on important information like — time to vaccinate, deworm the animals/pets.
4. TNRM Initiative — To better manage the stray dog population in Singapore, the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) will be rolling out a five-year programme aimed at sterilising stray dogs here. For this they will be working with AWGs and vets in the new TNRM (Trap-Neuter-Release-Manage programme), slated to start in the second half of 2018. We will be taking this into consideration to help them implement this initiative seamlessly into their day-to-day process.
Feedback from our client
Conclusion
We believe that with this design system incorporated in the product it will unify the ecosystem, break down walls of communication creating trust and accountability to ease the workflow so that AWGs can focus on doing what they love most — Caring for the welfare of the pets.
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