Rover Mobile App Redesign

Rover is an app that allows pet owners to find the best pet sitters who can take care of their pets when they need them. As a pet owner and also a loyal user, I always think there are potential opportunities for this app to improve its efficiency. I think there’s a great chance to create a win-win situation for both pet owners and sitters who are using this product.

Overview

UX UI Design / User Research / Prototyping / Information Architecture / Branding

My Role

Tool

Figma

Scheduling and Availability: Developing a robust scheduling system that accommodates various time zones, multiple pets, and specific requirements of both pet owners and sitters can be complex. Ensuring accurate availability updates, real-time notifications, and flexible booking options can present challenges.

Trust and Verification: Building trust is crucial in the pet-sitting industry. Verifying the credibility of pet owners and sitters, providing user reviews and ratings, and implementing trust-building features like background checks or identity verification can be challenging but vital for the success of the app.

Design Challenge

Quick Peek of Final Solutions

Initial Opportunity Exploration

  1. There is not enough information on the profiles of pet owners which leads to a lack of accuracy and efficiency for the matching process.

  2. Right now there are no appropriate ways for pet owners to monitor their pets in real-time, and pet owners can be worried when they can make sure their pets are having a good quality life.

  3. The time range for availability is too broad which causes the problem of sitters not being available when they are marked available.

Problems

  1. To make the booking experience more transparent and trustable by designing the profiles to include more information on both sides -(sitters and owners).

  2. To make the pet owners less worried and pet sitters’ jobs easier by adding real-time GPS features.

  3. To improve the quality of booking services by making available time ranges smaller.

Design Goals

  1. Enhancing profile information: By providing comprehensive and detailed profiles for pet owners and sitters, the app can enable more accurate and efficient matching processes.

  2. Real-time GPS tracking: Introducing a real-time GPS feature within the app can alleviate pet owners' concerns by allowing them to monitor their pets remotely.

  3. Improved availability management: Implementing a more precise availability management system can enhance the overall quality of the booking services.

  4. Trust and transparency: Redesigning the app to prioritize transparency and trust will contribute to a more positive user experience.

Opportunities

Design Process

Research

Understand

Sketch

Design

Eveluate

Implement

Research & Understand

  1. Identify the demographics of pet sitting services

  2. Determine Rover’s competitors and their strengths/weaknesses

  3. Determine Users’ pain points, frustrations, needs and goals.

Research Goals

My UX research process involved gathering insights from user reviews, evaluating competing apps, and understanding the target user demographic. By combining these methods, I will obtain valuable information that will inform and guide my redesign efforts, ensuring that the new Rover app addresses user pain points, aligns with industry standards, and meets the needs of the target audience.

Research Methods

User Review & Feedback

Competitors Analysis

User Demographic Research

Feedback from user reviews

  1. No real-time GPS function.

  2. Users need to contact multiple sitters to make sure one of them can take the order.

  3. Users do not need to go through background checks or provide enough information to book services.

  4. The range of availability is too broad.

Major take aways from IOS App Store Reviews:

  1. Complicated booking system.

  2. The process of uploading pictures for report cards is annoying and sitters sometimes can not send report cards on time. 

  3. When users contact sitters who are confirmed available, the sitters might not be available. 

  4. There’s no response for sitters if users choose other sitters.

Major take aways from Android App Store Reviews:

Competitive Analysis

  1. Wag! has a live GPS function to track sitters’ route

  2. Wag! also has a specific service range and allows users to book services without confirming with sitters.

  3. Pawshake has a map function to allow users to check available sitters nearby.

Inspiration:

User Demographics

  • In terms of pet ownership, APPA found that Millennials are the largest segment of pet owners at 32%, with Baby Boomers close behind at 27%, Gen X at 24% and Gen Z at 14%. However, APPA expects that Gen Z’s ownership will steadily grow as many become adults within the next few years.

Key insights from pet owner demographic research:

  • White households have the highest pet ownership rate with 64.7%. Secondly, Hispanic Households with 61.4%. And lastly, Black-African American Households have the lowest pet ownership rate with 36.9%.

  • Close to 60% of households with incomes of more than $80,000 a year have pets compared with 36% of households with incomes less than $20,000.

Persona 1

Millennials who have pets and busy jobs

Persona 2

Full-time / Part-time pet sitters

Solutions

I will design a route plan function that allows sitters to see the route ahead of time instead of figuring out a route by themselves. The real-time GPS function allows pet owners to see where are their pets and makes the whole system more trustworthy and transparent.

Route Plan & Real Time GPS

I will redesign the booking process by letting pet owners choose a specific time range and complete the booking without waiting for a response from sitters.

Quick Booking

The new Rover app will let users build a complete profile before allowing them to make an order. This will increase the accuracy of the matching process and increase the transparency for pets and sitters.

Build a complete profile

Userflows

Lo-Fi Wireframes

Finalized Design

Sitters can complete different tasks more efficiently.

Sitters can browse upcoming tasks on the home page and complete a task by simply selecting a preplanned map.

Pet owners can book a service within 1 minute.

Users can select and book a service by simply selecting service time.

Pet owners will need to build a profile before making the first order.

Users can quickly log in and fill in all the required information before making the first order.

Visual Style