Pumpkin Cat Care

Pumpkin Cat Care

Pumpkin Cat Care

4 Months
Research + Design
Team of 4

Overview

In this semester-long project, my team partnered with Pumpkin, a pet health insurance company. We explored how new cat owners take care of their feline's health. Based on our research findings, we created a Cat Symptom Checker app.

Process

  1. Discovery + Research

  2. Data Analysis

  3. Concepts

  4. Wireframes

  5. Prototypes

  6. Usability Testing

Role

Design Co-Lead

Design Co-Lead


Design Co-Lead

Timeline

3.5 months

3.5 months

Tools

Figma

Procreate

Zoom

Design Co-Lead


Figma, Procreate, Qualtrics, Zoom

Problem Statement

In our initial literature review, there was one finding that stood out to us: Cats are less likely to be taken to the veterinarian than dogs. In our research we found that when new cat owners try to learn about their cats symptoms, they often faced misinformation and unspecific answers.

User Interviews

My team conducted interviews with both new cat owners and "cat owner experts" to learn more about the cat ownership experience. We wanted specifically to learn what challenges new cat owners experience.

We quickly identified that new cat owners often struggle with understanding their cat's health and navigating the vet experience.

User Persona

I created user personas for both the New Cat Owner and Expert Cat Owner archetypes, based on our interview data.

Empathy Map

I also created empathy maps for each persona to build out what the user thinks, feels, says, and does.

Concept Testing

We tested multiple concepts with our user group and picked the one that performed the best, as well as meeting our design requirements.

Wireframes

We created wireframes to test our design further before finalizing the design.

Task-Based User Testing

To learn about how to further improve the app design, we conducted task-based testing with cat owners. We asked users to complete specific tasks in the prototype:

  • Search Symptoms

  • Learn about Conditions and Treatments

  • Leave notes in the Journal

We then asked users to rate the difficulty of the tasks and asked for feedback on the different features.

Final Deliverable

Final Deliverable

All participants responded positively to our prototype in testing and expressed interest in using the product.

We also delivered suggestions for improvement, and our research insights:

  • Cat owners especially wanted to see home remedies and actions they could take immediately, to save an unneeded trip to the vet

  • Suggested improvemets on UI included adjustments to the multiple symptoms function and risk level alerts

  • Cat owners reported they would trust the app if it was backed by vets

All participants responded positively to our prototype in testing and expressed interest in using the product.

We also delivered suggestions for improvement, and our research insights:

  • Cat owners especially wanted to see home remedies and actions they could take immediately, to save an unneeded trip to the vet

  • Suggested improvemets on UI included adjustments to the multiple symptoms function and risk level alerts

  • Cat owners reported they would trust the app if it was backed by vets

Reflections

Reflections

Through our final round of iterations, we identified several areas for improvement, but one key element that would be essential for producing this app, was the involvement of veterinarians.

Looking back on our research, it would have been invaluable to get veterinary practitioners involved early on in the design. A co-design session with these vets would've likely resulted in an amazing design that we would not have been able to come up with on our own.

Through our final round of iterations, we identified several areas for improvement, but one key element that would be essential for producing this app, was the involvement of veterinarians.

Looking back on our research, it would have been invaluable to get veterinary practitioners involved early on in the design. A co-design session with these vets would've likely resulted in an amazing design that we would not have been able to come up with on our own.