Pikmi!
Your pet
matchmaker
Role: Main UX/UI Designer
Duration: 2 months (Apr-May '23)
Project vision
Pikmi! is a website that matches people looking to adopt with their future pet(s).
Through a series of 10 questions, the users are invited to think about what they're looking for in their soon-to-be friend(s) and what they can offer to them.
Upon finding their match(es), the users will receive an invite to meet them at Pikmi!'s shelter.
Challenges
1) Successfully match user and pet
2) Create a fun and easy experience
3) Be transparent about the pet's health, background and behaviour
Problem & goal
According to Statista, between 2012 and 2023, the number of UK households owning a pet has risen from 47% to 57%. Unfortunately, more than a million pets were surrendered for adoption during the pandemic, often because people did not realise what owning a pet involves or because the pet they chose did not suit their personality. Because all parties' wellbeing should be kept top of mind, Pikmi! is aiming to match the owner with their future pet while being fully transparent about the dog or cat's background and needs.
Research
Interviews & empathy map
In order to build a product that would suit my future users, I decided to interview 8 people, 4 who were looking to adopt a pet and 4 who already had one. Beginning the adoption process is a very exciting step but it can also be daunting as so much needs to be considered.
I made sure to ask open-ended questions to not influence the participants such as:
"what information about the pet do you feel is important to get before making the adoption decision?"
"if you adopted a pet in the past, how would you have improved the process?"
50% of the interviewees who had adopted a pet said their dog or cat had a health issue that was not mentioned in their profile. It had been very distressful since they had to spend consequent amounts of money at the vet that were not foreseen.
70% of the respondents also brought up having dealt with a very lengthy and cumbersome process with 25% of them not even finding their ideal companion.
Those interviews revealed the need for pets' profile to be thorough and transparent, with trustworthy information about their health, background and behaviour in order for the users to make an informed decision. The future owners are also eager to find the right companion rapidly and stress-free.
Since I had collected lots of precious information, I decided to build an empathy map to represent all the participants, their thoughts, words, feelings and behaviour, under one generic user, Christina, who's looking for the perfect pet. It helped me summarise the interviews minutes and get a better idea of what I could offer to my future users:
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Persona
To go further into understanding the end user, I decided to build Christina's persona, giving her a backstory and goals.
Christina is a sales representative living in Liverpool, UK, who wants to adopt a dog and needs a transparent and safe adoption process to make sure the companion they choose fits well with their family:
Having a persona makes designing a product easier as we know for whom we're building it and what they need from it.
Competitive audit
Before diving into the ideation phase, I made sure to look into the competition and evaluate their adoption flow and how it could be improved. It was also a good opportunity to reflect on the unique value proposition I could bring to the pet adoption landscape.
I focused on my two direct competitors, the RSPCA and the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home charities, and a third one, indirect competitor this time, Exotic Pets, an online shop that sells reptiles, amphibians and inverts.
They all did a decent job promoting their pets and were easy enough to use. Most of them also seemed highly reliable. However, they did mention they couldn't guarantee to find you the perfect match and the waiting time felt quite long.
This is something I wanted Pikmi! to be better at: matching users with their ideal pet(s) during a swift and enjoyable adoption flow.
Ideation
Paper wireframes
For the ideation phase, I started by sketching a few paper wireframes for my homepage. The final iteration at the bottom is very simple, with a big hero image at the top, a prominent CTA inviting the user to start the adoption questionnaire, and some text.
The "final" wireframe captures all the most relevant ideas from each iteration marked with an asterisk *
I decided to focus on the desktop view for this project, as I wanted to take on a new challenge after building a mobile app for Buddy.
Digital wireframes & lo-fi prototype
With a better idea of how Pikmi! should look like, I started designing the digital wireframes.
First, the onboarding screens welcome the users and explain to them what is Pikmi!. It was important to me to add those screens as I wanted to remind the users that adopting a pet is a life-long commitment they should take seriously.
Then, they are invited to login or sign up if they don't yet have an account. After that, they can start the 10 steps questionnaire that will help narrow down the dog or cat they're looking for, while replying also to a few questions about their living conditions. I wanted to make sure both users and pets find the perfect match in each other. While it's important to keep the users' needs in mind, the animals' well-being should be the top priority.
After replying to the questions, the users will select one pet's profile out of 3 so they can meet up at the shelter and get to know each other.
1st usability study
To gauge how engaging and intuitive the adoption flow was, I decided to set up a usability study.
Participants
3 men and 2 women, between the ages of 25 and 36, 2 having successfully adopted a pet in the past, 2 currently looking to adopt, and the last participant who tried adopting a few months back but gave up because they could not find a match.
Sessions
Remote moderated study, lasting approximately 25 minutes each, where users, following my prompts, tested the sign up flow, the questionnaire and picking a pet to meet at a shelter.
Findings
I gathered my findings in an affinity map and decided to work on the most pressing issues below:
The user cannot choose when they want to meet the pet
There are only 3 pets to choose from and only one we can meet
It's not clear only pets close to the user's address are shown
Refining the designs
Thanks to the usability study feedback, I was able to improve the mock ups:
The user can't choose the meet up date
The user can now choose the meet up date and time
A few of the changes made to Pikmi!
Lack of pet options
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More pet options and the possibility to choose up to 3 to meet at the shelter
2nd usability study & hi-fi prototype
After working on the mock ups, I reached again to my usability testers for a new round of feedback. They mentioned 2 elements that still needed improvement:
1. "on the postcode confirmation question, it's annoying I have to retype my answer"
2. "it's not easy to use the accordions on the pet's description question"
I was glad the users shared this feedback as it helped improve greatly the user experience:
It's annoying to repeat the info
The post code is pre-filled and the user only needs to confirm
More changes..
The accordions are not easy to use
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More intuitive categories were introduced
After this second round of changes, I delivered my updated high-fidelity prototype:
Play with the prototype
Remember our user Christina and how anxious she was to find the perfect dog for her family? Well, Pikmi! matched her with Pongo and she could not be happier!
Visual design
For the UI, I wanted something modern, with vivid colours, a powerful imagery and typography, something that would wow the users and keep them interested.
I also made sure to keep accessibility in mind, with legible fonts and colours, and an intuitive flow.
Look back on the challenges
1- Successfully match user and pet
Unlike traditional pet adoption websites where the user would spend hours scrolling through profiles, Pikmi! only shares suitable candidates with the user, thanks to the info collected during the questionnaire.
2- Create a fun and easy experience
Nobody likes to fill out pages of forms. This is why Pikmi! introduces instead a short series of 10 questions followed by a Tinder-like experience where users can check out pets' profiles and choose the one(s) they'd like to meet.
3- Be transparent about the pet's health, background and behaviour
Pikmi! is all about transparency. All the pet's details are disclosed to the user, such as their needs, challenges, health status, etc. so the user can make the best informed decision.
Takeaways & next steps
Designing for desktop and for social good were definitely new challenges for me on this project. My priority was to keep the user focused at all times, wether it'd be during the questionnaire or when scrolling through the pets' profiles. Adopting a dog or a cat is a huge responsibility, so I wanted to remind the user of that, while making sure they also had an enjoyable experience. I am very happy with how Pikmi! turned out and how it is helping users and pets find each other.
Because lots of pets are abandoned every year, I wish I could have introduced a sort of test to make sure the user was ready to adopt and check their reaction when faced with challenges pet owners encounter in their daily lives. Definitely an idea to keep in mind.
If I were to continue working on this project, I would try moving the account creation just before viewing the pets' profiles, only to see if it would improve the user's experience. I know lots of websites keep this step at the end of the flow to avoid discouraging and losing the users even before they did anything on the site. I think A/B testing would be ideal to test both flows. Hopefully this is something I can test in the future.
I hope you enjoyed reading through this case study!
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