Pet Planet
A Case Study
Designing an AI-assisted, healing-centered mobile app to provide animal funeral services and help people farewell to their lost pets without regret.
Role & Team
Lead UX Designer & Researcher in a team of 3
Ideation
User Research
Prototyping
Time
July - August 2023
Tools
Figma / Miro
About
In Summer 2023, I joined a team of 3 designers as a UX Researcher working on designing an App for an individual client in China. This project aims to design a platform that can provide comprehensive, convenient, and economical solutions for pet funerals and help people move beyond the grief of losing their loved pets. My role involved conducting market and user research, contributing to ideation, designing the branding, and prototyping.
Goal: design an app that provides seamless pet memorial and funeral services to help pet owners say goodbye to their pets and navigate through grief
Design Process
User Research
Market Research
Secondary Research
Questionnaire Survey
User Interview
Definition
Persona
Empathy Map
User Journey Map
Comparative Analysis
Design Strategy
Kano Model
Storyboard
Design
Low-fi Prototype
High-fi Prototype
Branding
Testing
User Feedback
Conclusion
In the first stage of our research, I conducted literature reviews to understand the existing group of Chinese pet owners and the pet funeral service market in China. We summarized several bullet points.
1. The market is highly in need of a more convenient and efficient pet funeral service.
2. The user group is large with high acceptance and demands better services.
After secondary research, it's surprising to find out...
The pet owners not only need better pet funeral service, but also therapy.
With the background research in mind, we conducted secondary research to better understand our users. We discovered that there are a lot of complex feelings involved regarding deceased pets. When we're trying to provide more efficient services, it's important to take into consideration their emotion needs as they're usually overlooked.
We sent out a survey asking about experiences of losing a pet, and got 45 responses
100%
think a ceremony for lost pets comforted them, and helped reduce their negative emotions
80%
disagree with reviving their pet on a digital platform using AI/VR/AR can help reduce negative emotions, and it would be weird to see their pet being immortal
After interviewing with 5 people, we pinned down 2 major directions.
Most of the users don't want a replacement of their pets (i.e. AI, virtual), but want to know their pets were happy, taken care of, and will always be with them.
Creating user persona and empathy map to better understand what our target users need
What is the user journey and what stages/scenarios should we prioritize based on previous findings?
A step by step user journey map detailing everything from before pet's passing
What do the users care about the most? What can be put aside for now?
Employ a system to sort out and rank user flows using Kano Model and Maslow's hierachy of needs.
Through the journey map, we gained a deeper understanding of user needs, emotions, and expectations. We have identified some opportunities, but solving these issues all at once is not feasible. Therefore, we plan to prioritize and address these pain points and opportunities in the design strategy phase.
We asked 7 interviewees to rate what they feel about providing a solution for each of the pain points. According to the result, we summarized the possible opportunities using a Kano model. After that, we fit the performance requirements and attractive requirements into Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to further refine or design strategy.
Identify three main needs and create user flows
Based on the top needs we summarized from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, We created three user flows and storyboards to illustrate the three features.
User Flow 1
Scenario #1: Mrs. Liu's pet has just passed away, and she wishes to organize a funeral ceremony for a proper farewell. However, she is engulfed in negative emotioins and is unsure of how to proceed. The information available online is overwhelming and scattered, making her feel disoriented and have no clue how to filter information. She wants a convenient and compassionate platform that understands her current sentiments – a one-step guide with care to help her navigate through the process and in completing the final farewell.
User Flow 2
Scenario #2: During Mrs. Liu's childhood, due to educational reasons, her parents had to send their beloved pet to relatives. Unfortunately, the pet passed away in the care of the relatives, leaving Mrs. Liu with a sense of guilt. Now, she wishes to hold a make up farewell ceremony or memorial to reconcile with the memories of her past pet and find closure within herself. She also wants to talk to her pet again, let it know she's sorry, she's doing fine and hope the best for it in another planet.
User Flow 3
Scenario #3: Mrs. Liu is in the process of selecting a suitable pet funeral service, but she finds that many services on the market are quite similar. She is in need of a more personalized funeral service.
Low-fi Prototyping
High-fidelity Prototyping
Landing Page
Main Page + Features
Impact & testing metrics
90%
of testing users expressed wanting to use the app in the future
4.3/5
users ranked Pet Planet a 4.3 out of 5 in terms of user experience and interactions