Rover: Case study- adding a new fuction
“The world’s largest network of 5-star pet sitters and dog walkers”
On the third week of the Bootcamp, we got a topic that all of us enjoyed a lot. We had to add a new function to one of the given Apps (Netflix, Whatsapp, Linkedin, Tinder, Uber, Glovo, Rover, and much more). This time we were a group of three and all of us love the animals so we didn’t think so much about the consequences and we decided to go for Rover. My colleagues were Nuria and Vivi and we got along very well from the beginning.
Design Process
During this week we developed the project using the following tools:
Empathize
We chose that field without even thinking about what we should expect, none of us has been users of the Rover App, but we all love animals and have pets. So, once the instructors uphold our field we started with the project. First of all, we started digging the App and we realized that it was a very complete App and that we were going to have a rough time finding something that users need, but I suppose that each project has its own difficulties.
We began analyzing the competitors to see which functionalities they have that Rover doesn’t. The SWOT Analysis was also really helpful to see how we were able to improve the App. But, it was not until we started taking surveys and interviews when we realized what needs our users had.
We got 41 answers to our surveys where we could observe that most pet owners worry that their pets don’t receive the same attention as the one given by them. From this insight, we wanted to develop a function in which the owner could leave a checklist with instructions so the petsitter knew what to do at all times. But we realized that most pet owners within our reach to interview do not use these types of services because they would rather leave the pets with friends or family.
We decided to take another course and we conducted 8 interviews with users that have lately taken care of pets. Two of the interviews were really helpful because they were actual users of those types of services. One of them is a user of Rover and she has had a bad experience taking care of a pet, but she couldn’t leave a review so others wouldn’t go through the same. All the interviewees agreed that they prefer to know what is the pet like before accepting or not the job. Furthermore, getting back to the competitive analysis we realized that other Apps have the option of reviewing your experience with this pet owner but it wasn’t possible in Rover.
Define
After analyzing the problems with the different tools mentioned above, we came to the conclusion that our ideal user is a person who likes to take care of pets in their free time and thus make extra money but has had problems taking care of a puppy. In the following infographic, you can see both the User Journey Map and the User Scenario. It helped us to see how we could help our user and how would be her experience using the app with the new option.
Ideate
With all this, we started with the Brainstorming and later with the Crazy 8. It was really great to see how the combination of all of our ideas and sketches shaped the final solution. We finally decided to continue with the idea of adding a function that would allow pet sitters to rate owners and see the reviews of other users.
You can see the low-fidelity prototype below, it shows how a user will use this function of rating a service.
Moreover, to put into practice what we learned in class, we made a Moodboard and asked five persons to choose five adjectives from a list of adjectives. So we could see if the colors of the brands were able to convey the corresponding values.
Solution
After all this process we have decided to add a review option that has 3 main features:
High Fidelity Prototype
In this prototype, you will be able to see implemented this rating function. At first, we thought we should preserve the aesthetics of the original App whit no changes. The App has a bit of lack of consistency through its different sections and we noticed it but did nothing. But after presenting our project we decided to change everything that was necessary to improve the user experience and the interface. Below you can see the result of our work.
Next Steps
As future improvements we would like, on the one hand, to be able to develop the point system that would improve the position of the petsitters users.
On the other hand, we would like to develop the solution that we first got, the checklist for pet owners and pet sitters. We would like to make another research with those users to understand how could we improve this service.
Thanks!
This has been a great week and I am really grateful to work with my colleagues. I have so much fun this week and I think we have worked really peacefully. It is nice to see that no matter how difficult it may seem at the beginning, that it is always possible to add extra functionalities to well-established applications on the market.
Thank you very much for coming that far. Any suggestions are welcome. You can contact me at laura.designs@gmail.com
