Case Study 2: Design A Pet Registration Flow For A Veterinarian
Project Overview
The product
Love Your Pet Vet Clinic is a Cat and Dog focused general vet clinic situated at Stafford, AZ. They would like to create a website that allow online booking so as to avoid the “line busy” situation, and attract more potential pet parent.
The problem
A devoted pet owner who is uncertain about the credibility of the vet and the clinic. they found it hard to make an appointment as the line is always busy. Due to lack of information and usual business practice, vet are randomly assigned to new patient, pet owner do not have a choice. In addition to this, pet owner are frustrated by the complicated registration process.
The goal
To Design a professional and informative website that help pet owner to decide and book the right Vet for their pet.
Project duration
1 Month (10 Mar 2022 – 10 April 2022)
Understand the User
I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users I’m designing for and their needs. A primary user group identified through research was a young pet parent at the age between 25 - 35 who are facing certain degree of difficulties on choosing a Vet Clinic.
This user group confirmed initial assumptions about Love Your Pet Vet Clinic’s client, but research also revealed that client may leave the website due to lack of Vet information, Client Review, Choice and complicated registration process.
User Painpoint
IA
Uninformative content and unwanted pop-up promotional window prevent user to stay in the website
Process
Always line busy, hard to book appointment over the phone
Process
Complicated registration process
Accessibility
Platforms for online registration are not equipped with assistive technologies
Persona & Problem Statement
Julie is a devoted dog lover, who needs to get her dog register to a reliable and easy to reach vet clinic because she want to ensure her dog can receive high-quality health service
User Journey Map
I created a user journey map of Julie’s experience using the site to help identify possible pain points and improvement opportunities.
Starting The Design
Sitemap
One of my goal is to design an informative website that enable user to preview the vet and the clinic information so as to help them to book the right Vet for their pet. At this point, I applied the hierarchy structure to help user to explore the information they required.
My major goal is to design an easy registration flow for user to perform online booking. Here, I applied the sequential structure to help user to complete the Booking Process under booking section.
Paper wireframes
With the objective of “catching user attention”, I sketched out paper wireframes in different version, The home screen paper wireframe variations to the right focus on optimizing the browsing experience for users.
Stars were used to mark the elements of each sketch that would be used in the initial digital wireframes.
Screen Size Variation
Because Love Your Pet Clinic’s client access the site on a variety of different devices, I started to work on designs for additional screen sizes to make sure the site would be fully responsive.
Digital Wireframe
Moving from paper to digital wireframes made it easy to understand how the redesign could help address user pain points and improve the user experience.
Prioritizing useful button location, User Review and visual element placement on the home page was a key part of my strategy
Digital wireframe screen size variation
Usability study: Findings
To start testing the designs, I created a low-fidelity prototype which you can view here. This prototype was used in an unmoderated usability study with 5 participants. Here are the main findings uncovered by the usability study:
Homepage
User experienced a difficulty searching for the “Book appointment” at the Top Nav Bar.
Booking
Users are not satisfied with the manual input, the whole booking process is boring and uninspired.
Number of Pet
Users are not able to add another pet.
Refining The Design - Mock up
Based on the insights from the usability study, I made changes to improve the site’s booking flow. One of the changes I made was resize and relocate the Book Appointment button at the Homepage top Nav Bar. This allow users to reach booking more easily.
The second change I made was introducing Tab button and Dropdown Manual to minimized the need of manual input. Attractive UI design also introduced so as to increase the users emotional fulfilment
The last major change in the booking process was adding the “Add another pet” page, it ensures multiple pet parent to book appointment under the same timeslot.
Accessibility considerations
Heading
I used headings with different sized text for clear visual hierarchy
Landmarks
I used landmarks to help users navigate the site, including users who rely on assistive technologies
Screen Readers
I designed the site with alt text available on each page for smooth screen reader access
Refined Design
Screen Size Variations
I included considerations for additional screen sizes in my mockups based on my earlier wireframes. Because users book appointment from a variety of devices, I felt it was important to optimize the browsing experience for a range of device sizes, such as mobile so users have the smoothest experience possible.
High-fidelity prototype
My hi-fi prototype followed the same user flow as the lo-fi prototype, and included the design changes made after the usability study, as well as several changes suggested by members of my team.
View The registration flow for Love Your Pet Vet Clinic prototype here.
Going Forward
Takeaways
Impact:
Our target users shared that the design was intuitive and more emotional fulfilling, they can actually booking appointment with their pet together, they feel like the clinic is really communicating with their pet.
What I learned:
I learned that even a small design change can have a huge impact on the user experience. The most important takeaway for me is to always focus on the real needs of the user when coming up with design ideas and solutions.
Next Step
Testing
Conduct follow-up usability testing on the new website
User Research
Identify any additional areas of need and ideate on new features
Modern Florist Love Your Pet Vet Clinic VF Coaching Home