Connecting pet parents and
small pet care businesses.
GoodFriend • Full MVP Launched Oct 2021
GoodFriend is a two-sided marketplace platform that connects pet parents with local pet care providers like groomers and trainers.
🔗 Visit the live site at https://www.goodfriend.com
Team ↓
Project managers, 10+ engineers and 3 designers
Matt Harlan (Creative Director)
Anna Sherriuble (Senior Designer)
Me (UX Designer)
Tools used ↓
Figma
Google Docs
Usertesting.com
Timeline ↓
Apr 2021 - Aug 2022 (1.5 years)
MVP release: Oct 2021
Design Sprint Cycle & My Roles
I joined this project as a sole UX Designer.
Led all UX research including market research and competitive analysis.
Defined end-to-end user flows with stakeholders and developers.
Created wireframes, prototyping, and part of the visual design mockups.
Led Usability testing for the search feature improvement.
✨ The highlight of my accomplishment ✨
Designed the holistic experience from the concept to the final product.
Created the entire customer-facing user flows and wireframes.
👉 Click here to see all the user flows for customer users.
Led 3 rounds of usability testing to improve the search feature.
1st round: 95% positive results of entire customer side task flows but we discovered user’s confusion on the search bar.
2nd round: In-depth usability testing focused on the search feature.
3rd round: A/B test to validate the best option for Search V2.0.
4th round: Conducted usability testing by SUS(System Usability Score) method to measure the success of UX improvement.
Here is the test score of the 4th round of usability testing conducted after the project finished:
Search bar (5 participants): 86.6 - Excellent to launch
How did it begin?
Our client ‘Kinship’ had an idea for a new web-based service in the pet industry and they reached out to Graveflex to build the pilot website for both customers (pet parents) and providers (business owners).
This case study focuses on a customer(pet parent)'s experience. Click here if you’re interested in the pet care provider side of service.
Background
Finding and booking for pet care service is not easy.
87% of pet care (excl. Veterinary Services) businesses in the US, are Local and small to mid-sized. It’s also a fragmented and low-tech industry. The majority of these small businesses rely on traditional customer acquisition tools, like a very basic website with a contact form or over-the-phone booking.
Therefore, as pet parents, finding and booking services for their pets is not convenient or easy.
2019 Est. Market Share (excl. Veterinary Services)
The Problem — What do we need to focus on?
Target User — Who is this for?
Millennial Pet Parents
Characteristics
Treats their pets like members of their family
Tech savvy
Value time efficiency
Want companies to be transparent
Pain points
Hard to choose a service provider that’s right for their pet.
Have to call to check the availability for an appointment.
Needs
My dog or cat gets good care from the pet people.
Check the availability easily. (without making a call)
Why Millennials?
Millennials are the generation most likely to own pets, accounting for 32% of US pet owners.
(Source: “Share of pet ownership in the US by generation”, © Statista 2022)
Find and Book with the most trusted local pet care professionals all at once.
Customers should be able to easily 1. find and 2. compare local pet businesses and
3. book appointments online — so they can spend more time with their furry family members!
The Goal - Challenge accepted!
The Solution
Psst, jump to the Design process if you want to check that first!
Solution 01
Find local pet professionals
Search local pet care providers by service type (grooming, and training for MVP)
Search businesses by location, and service type.
Search by business name if the user already knows the specific business (optional).
Check the location of pet businesses on the map.
Solution 02
Compare and choose
Check the business details, service offerings, and real-time availability for each provider.
Compare businesses and choose the one that’s right for you and your pets.
Start booking an appointment by clicking the open time slots.
Check the other customers’ reviews.
Solution 03
Book in a few clicks
Make an appointment without waiting.
Check the real-time availability for each business.
Select the pet, service, staff, and their schedule that matches the customer's desired time.
Save a payment method to use for future appointments.
1️⃣ Competitive Analysis
What are others doing?
The purpose of this research is to:
Know how are other services solving the problem.
Check what kind of features other services provide.
Narrow down the features that we can provide for MVP.
There are some services out there that have a similar user experience; finding businesses and booking online.
I looked into those services to check the functionality, user flow, and layout. During this process, I found the common design patterns and features that were used. This was the basis for creating wireframes in the next step.
2️⃣ Wireframes & Prototype
Exploration and Iteration
The purpose of this step is to:
Explore the many different ways to solve the problem and create wireframes to review with the team.
Check the dev feasibility and narrow down the options.
Make a clickable prototype to prepare for usability testing.
Example) Business page revision process
Brainstorm ideas, draw wires, and discuss them with the design manager and stakeholders.
3️⃣ Testing
Listen, ask, and repeat
The purpose of this step is to:
Validate the user flow and wireframes and check if there is anything that we can improve.
Ensure the plan for a product’s features and overall purpose is in line with what users want.
Collaborated with the researchers from the client’s company, we conducted usability testing to gather feedback. Overall we got very good feedback from the test, but at the same time, we discovered some unexpected problems with the search feature.
However, because of the tight deadline, we couldn’t make a whole lot of changes so we had to launch MVP with a search feature that users may misunderstand.
Key Insights from the 2nd UT focused on the ‘Search feature’
👎 5/5 said that they felt confused about what to put in the search field.
👎 3/5 mentioned that they don’t understand why it shows the businesses who don’t accept online bookings.
Overview
5 dog/cat parents who have used grooming and/or training services in the past 2 years.
Ages range 19-39
Unmoderated usability testing using usabilitytesting.com (It’s fast to gather user’s feedback)
Top-line Results
👍 5/5 rated the search results as very clear.
👍 4/5 rated finding a pet care provider as very easy.
👍 4/5 users reported the booking process as being easy to complete and meeting their needs.
🤔 2/5 shared concerns about having to search for providers via their name because they’re not likely to know the exact business name.
After the launch, I strongly urged managers and stakeholders to improve the search function. I planned and conducted the usability test alone. I made a new test script and task flow, focusing specifically on search functions, and we obtained detailed insights from the users.
4️⃣ Iteration
And, iterate again
The purpose of this step is to:
Explore different options to improve the current search feature based on the user’s feedback.
Discuss with the team and determine the final direction of the solution.
We had a clear direction for the search V2. I explored different options for the search bar and result page design to match the user’s feedback so that we could eliminate any possible misunderstanding, and prioritize the features focused on what the user really wants.
Search bar V2.0 A/B Test
Overview
participants: 5 dog or dog&cat parents who have used grooming and/or training services in the past 2 years.
Ages range 19-39
Unmoderated usability testing using usabilitytesting.com (It’s fast to gather user’s feedback)
Major Insights
3/5 participants picked option 1 as the one that works the best in the given scenario.
Option 3 is the most flexible way to allow users to search for whatever they want but it also might cause unexpected issues.
For example, one user thought she can type in any kind of pet service like ‘bakery for dogs’ which is not included in our service type.
5️⃣ Final Design
It’s time to wrap up!
The purpose of this step is to:
Finalize the solutions, and get the stakeholders’ feedback on the hi-fi mockups.
Handoff deliverables to developers including:
Design comps for different devices to support responsive website
Assets (images, icons, fonts, UI components, etc)
All the design comps for different states.
We made high-fidelity designs based on the brand guideline from the client. Our visual designer already made the Design system so I used the components from there to make sure all designs were consistent.
The Result
We successfully launched a customer-facing website with the MVP feature in Oct 2021, and our client extended the contract with us. The client mentioned that our performance fulfilled their expectations and we have enough capabilities and skills to continue to improve the product.
Now, the project has been officially wrapped up since the client decided to temporally discontinue the service. With GoodFriend, we created a brand new product from an idea in the real world.
Reflection
I learned a lot about the rapidly growing pet industry and its customer base in the United States.
I realized again that we will always get feedback that we never expected from our usability tests.
🧐 What did I learn?
🤔 If I had more time…
Because this project was for MVP, we did not have enough time to add more specialized services such as Groomer certifications, K9 training curriculum, or filters to see only specific services.