Pacific Pet Grooming

Project Overview

Research Plan

I created an outline of criteria for how the research will be conducted. I created this research plan to ensure that the results yield the best possible solution for the client.

Secondary Research

Market Research

I then researched current traveling companies and statistics to gain a better understanding of trends, successes, users, and patterns to be able to apply them to Pacific Pet Grooming

Competitor Research

After I researched the market, I dove into competitor research. I compared and contrasted companies that have similar grooming aspects. I identified three Direct & two Indirect competitors to gain an understanding of current patterns, successes, and weaknesses.

Below is a chart for comparison.

Primary Research

User Research

I then conducted User interviews with prospective users to gain deeper insight into user needs, goals, needs, motivations, & frustrations. With limitations due to the pandemic and time constraints; interviews were conducted mainly through phone calls consisting of 12 questions that were open-ended.

Read the script in full detail here.

Summary of User Interview

# of participants: 5

Length of interviews: 10-15 minutes

3 females / 2 males. 

Ages: 21 - 45

Assumptions Validated

• User believed that pet grooming is expensive

Validated: 5/7 participants believed that pet grooming is expensive

• User believed they can groom their pet themself

Inconclusive: 3/7 participants say that they maintained their pet in between grooming but none say that they groom their pets year-round

•  User thought that their pet will have a traumatic experience

Inconclusive: Only 1/7 participants said that their pet had a traumatic experience

• User wanted to be able to share the experience

Inconclusive: Zero participants mentioned that they share the experience

• User is scared that their pet will come back not like how they want

Validated: 7/7 participants all stated that they worry about the outcome of the grooming session

User persona

After I synthesized my research, I created a realistic and fictional persona that best represented my findings. Meet Anthony, he is an adult male that is secured in finances. He has a full-time job where he will need to take his dog to get groomed and only minorly maintain it at home.

I created the user persona so that I can reference back to as I am designing, and to be able to use it to justify the direction of the design.

POV Statements & HMW Questions

I created the point of view statements from Anthony’s perspective to be able to define and understand the user’s perspective. I did this so that I am able to formulate the ‘How might we?’ questions to help brainstorm ideas to help foresee any solutions to frustrations.

Brainstorming HMW solutions

I brainstormed each HMW question twice at 2 minutes each to draw about as many solutions as possible. Focused on the number of solutions instead of perfection, I did this so that I can come up with as many creative solutions as possible. This is essential in the defined stage because this is where I can generate ideas.

Strategy

Business and User goals

The Venn diagram below helped re-access the project goals to visually compare business goals and user goals to outline how the site should look. I did this to see how the two goals can be aligned and prioritized.

Site Map

With the gathered information from the competitor’s analysis, project goals, road map; I created a Pacific Pet Grooming Site Map that shows the site’s interconnectivity. I created this so that I could understand and organize how the site would function.

Feature Roadmap

I prioritized and categorized features for Pacific Pet Grooming by creating a feature that took into consideration: business, technical, and user goals. I categorized based on: must-have, nice to have, surprising/delightful, and can come later. These features are prioritized based on capability, cost, and time.

Task Flow

I defined potential tasks Users may take when interacting with Pacific Pet Grooming. I created a flow diagram to understand a path that a user could take to complete the task.

The three hypothetical and potential tasks are:

Task #1: Anthony books an appointment

Task #2: Anthony wants to check out the services provided

Task #3: Anthony wants to view his profile

View the Task flow in more detail below!

User Flow

To better understand the User’s interaction with the site. I created a User Flow diagram to gain insight into potential navigational patterns of Users. I showed this by illustrating decision trees. I created two scenarios for Anthony in which I hypothesized his actions and decisions to get to certain pages on Pacific Pet Grooming’s site.

The two scenarios that I created for Anthony are:

Scenario #1: Anthony was growing yelp to find a groomer, lands on Pacific Pet Grooming, He wants to book an appointment

Scenario #2: Anthony googles potential pet groomers. He stubbles on Pacific Pet grooming. He wants to check out their previous work.

View the User flow in more detail below!

Wireframes

Sketches

After I created the UI requirements document, I started sketching into each screen/page for Pacific Pet Grooming. I did this so that I can generate as many ideas as possible to create the best solution for the User pulling from competitor sites, and personal needs, goals, frustrations, and motivations.

Mid-fidelity responsive wireframes

After I generated as many sketches that I can, I started digitizing Mid-Fi responsive wireframes landing page, services, book appointments, about us, and profile page to visually realize what Pacific Pet Grooming. As well as any possible problems that can occur on multiple devices: Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile. I conducted usability testing using this prototype.

 After I rendered the mid-fidelity wireframes, I created a prototype using Invision. This mid-fidelity prototype is a simplified version consisting of the landing page, services page, about us page, book appointment page, and profile page. I used this prototype to conduct a usability test and asked participants to complete the following tasks:

Task #1: Check out the services provided

Task #2: Book an appointment

Additional, if time permits:

Task#3: Check out his profile

Check out the link below to the prototype below!

Usability test

Usability test plan

Created a plan to help guide in the process of testing prototype with focus on the following:

• Test goals

• Test subjects

• Methodologies

• Participants/ Recruiting plan

• Test completion rate

• Error free rate

Read script in full detail here.

Summary of User Interview

# of participants: 6

Length of interviews: 10-15 minutes

5 females / 1 male 

Ages: 20 - 40

Affinity map

Observed and recorded findings through transcribing testing in detail, documented slips, and time of completion. I created an affinity map based on my research findings, I noted down everything that was said by each participant during the usability test on to post-it notes. I created clusters out of any common frustrations or actions. I did this to synthesize information that I gathered from conducting the PPG prototype test to uncover any issues so that I can increase usability for the users.

Mid-fidelity Priority revisions

After I synthesized the information and learned about the user’s frustrations while interacting with my prototype. I revised the prototype using my priority chart. I did this so that I can further test my revisions to better my understanding of usability for my users before adding in any colors, images that may distract users from full engagement with the information architecture.

Main revisions:

1. Added CTA to ‘Our Services’ on the Landing page

2. Moved newsletter to be higher in the information hierarchy

3. Indicated the user profile with ‘Hi “username'“!’

4. Added payment to ‘Book Appointment’ page

5. Changed CTA button color at the end of book appointment to be more noticeable

Branding

Before I sketched into the logo, I started thinking about the brand’s attributes:

• Trustworthy

• Fun

• Inviting

• Friendly

• Modern

I then created a Pinterest board for Pacific Pet Grooming to gather inspiration for: Logo, Typography, Color

Check it out here!

Sketches

Focused on the brand’s attributes, I brainstormed how the Pacific Pet Grooming logo could be reworked to better fit the brand’s attributes. I started by hand sketching out my ideas. I reiterated and vectorized it into different scales. I went through a few iterations with opinions from my mentor’s guidance.

Style Tile

In unison with the logo creation, I created this Pacific Pet Grooming style tile to synthesize the research and inspiration for the logo, color, typography, and imagery. This acted as a guide when creating hi-fi responsive wireframes to maintain cohesiveness.

Responsive UI Design

I used the style tile and the mid-fi responsive wireframes as a reference as I designed the landing page and services page. I used the style tile to create the UI and review for the overall cohesiveness in the information hierarchy.

UI Kit

I then created the high-fidelity responsive wireframes. I created a compiled file that stores all UI elements. This UI kit is only a draft version, this will get reworked as the site gets maintained and updated. I created this file to be able to communicate with developers, stakeholders, project managers, and business owners.

High Fidelity Prototype

After I conducted my usability testing on the mid-fidelity wireframes, as well as creating the responsive UI in high fidelity. I created a high-fidelity prototype to further test for usability by adding color/graphics to each page. I did this so that I can further dive into any insights to better Pacific Pet grooming before launch.

Final thoughts

This was a rewarding project for me.

I was able to step out of my box and really challenge myself in the aesthetic side of the design. Coming from a fashion design background, I am drawn to the color black for everything because it’s most flattering on the body. However, with this project, in particular, I knew that it was going to be challenging in balancing color and information hierarchy. I kept the information relatively short and made sure the keep the images in the same tone. I also made sure to pick images that have the brand’s color/accent to make it really ‘pop.’

I also thoroughly enjoyed the interview and usability testing aspect of this project, as well as balancing the critiques of the business owner, peer, and mentor. I learned how to properly communicate my ideas using facts from my research to justify my decisions. I also used previous skills of negotiation to leverage some design aspects over others.

Not only that, I was able to showcase my adobe illustrator skills in logo design. I was able to convenience the owner to let me propose a new logo design that would be more scalable and functional. I have used illustrator almost every day for the past 10 years and it was nice to be able to bring that skill into this project.

Next steps

Using the revised prototype, I would re-test the priority revision recommendations. Finalize as much of the UI kit as possible (this would get updated as the product gets developed), and finalize any design specs using InVision Inspect to be able to handed off to developers. I will be available for any further questions.

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