work-parachute

Opportunity

Pet owners have a range of responsibilities with taking care of their pets' well being. Pet owners are concerned they are overspending on healthcare services because they are uninformed on their pets needs. This often leads them to indecision, no decision, or spending extra on optional services. Parachute unifies dozens of separate apps by providing an all in one solution for budgeting, document management, and crowdfunding support, a much needed source-of-truth for millions of pet owners to be informed and prepared.
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As the lead designer I executed an end to end app that empowers pet owners to manage budgets, organize medical records, and receive financing support as an alternative to pet insurance. The app is currently in development.

Research

Understanding the hardships and unseen costs of pet ownership

During the immersion period, I set out to understand two areas of overlap: the users and the business market that can serve as discovery into the hardships pet owners face. Using mixed methods, I evaluate the business landscape to understand current services offered at veterinary clinics, pet insurance providers, and crowdfunding solutions. I conducted diverse research activities that include: audits of pet insurance and vet office websites, competitive analysis, and user interviews to understand gaps within the service and product offerings.

Since the space for budgeting and document management is saturated, I wanted to explore what was currently successful and what can be improved. In my competitor analysis, I evaluated the success based on this criteria:

1) understand how pet owners spend and track their expenses
2) identify any barriers involved with paying for pet care, and
3) understand how pet owners stay organized and accountable

Crowdfunding competitors and banking management solutions either were not designed with pet owners in mind, or lack an organization management tool for documents.

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Strategy

Defining the user, business, and technical needs to guide future design decisions

Once the needs are defined, they will serve to ensure that proposed ideations during the design process are not only desirable, but also useful for the end consumer, viable for the business, and operationally feasible.

The next steps include:

Gathering insights from surveys and interviews with pet owners to define most critical issues around affordability of pet preventative care
Establishing a value proposition to differentiate Parachute from competitors
Testing and validating concepts with users and the developer to ensure our product provides an affordable and transparent solution for their pets
Designing a dynamic, memorable, and accessible oriented visual identity

Leading conversations with pet owners on their experiences

I worked with pet owners located within the North America region, who have at least one year of pet-care experience and had pet insurance. Through conducting semi-structured contextual interviews, I can better understand pet owners needs and validate essential experience needs to characterize design problems.

5 pet owners with diverse pet ownership history
1 Common goal: improving their spending habits and ensuring their pets lead a healthy life
14 insights
6 emerging themes

Collectively, pet owners are most concerned about being uniformed on the options and affordability of preventative care treatments.
Second, they expressed the need to have access to their pet’s medical records.
While all pet owners surveyed do manage their expenses, there are variances in "what" the highest spending categories are, and "how" these expenses are budgeted.
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A post-interview synthesis through affinity mapping uncovered emerging patterns:

Transportation to clinic concerns: method of transport, commute, and parking

3/5 users

Availability of preferred vet

2/5 users

24/7 availability for emergency or illness-related visits

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Uninformed of upfront costs for services (preventative care)

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Missing or irretrievable pet medical records

3/5 users

Lack of open communication on financial support for pet healthcare

5/5 users

With this insight, how might we help pet owners manage their pet’s medical records and be better informed of financing options and budgeting for preventative care?

Our users needs were organized into personas like profiles of Ellio and Iris.
Pet owners like Ellio and Iris want to be better informed of their spending habits to be more financially savvy in pet health care and treatment.

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Ideation

Parachute is the affordable and transparent support for your pet’s healthcare.

Inspired by the budget management tool Mint and medical record storage platform Petmeddata, our solution simplifies and streamlines workflows so pet owners can access information on affordable preventative care and manage their pet’s medical records.

While I could not provide pet owners a robust crowdfunding solution for affording medical payments, I created the illusion of it. These considerations were incorporated into my product’s goals:

Help pet owners with managing and
tracking spending habits
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Functionality factors:
easy and simple, predictable, consistent

Provide clarity and organization through
DMS for pet medical records
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Reliable & Useful:
trust, comfort, quality

Connect with the wider community for
crowdfunding and resources sharing

Experience & Creativity:
memorable

Design

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Dynamic branding and accessible design system

Parachute reflects who we are and how we want our users to feel when they interact with our product. Designed for real-world situations and with prioritization for pet owners and their pets needs, these 4 values accountability, security, education, and community drive our promise to make pet health care easier and affordability manageable.

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Mobile Touchpoints

Parachute for web
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Testing & Iterations

A return to conversation with pet owners: Has Parachute met their needs in budgeting and preventative care record management?

The high-fidelity wireframes were converted into interactive prototypes. Usability tests were conducted via Maze using click heatmaps and post-test survey to analyze user behavior and performance of app functionality when navigating main flows.

Interview synthesis:

Participants included 5 pet owners with diverse pet ownership history
Participants were asked to complete 3 tasks:
1) User onboarding,
2) Create and track a budget for pet food, and
3) Set-up a pet profile and sort a new pet medical record.
A total of 3 themes emerged from user testing that drove iterations

Usability test results

Task 1:
User Registration & Log In

Task 2:
Create and track a custom budget for pet food

Task 3:
Set-up a pet profile and sort a pet medical record

Analyzing results to extract key insights that will drive future iterations

Diving deeper into the user interviews helped uncover how users were completing the tasks and why tasks 2 and 3 had significantly lower performance scores. A post-usability test survey analysis revealed 3 themes:
1) users found some banking and document-management features too advanced to navigate for beginners,
2) the terminology around the former point led to more mistakes, and
3) while the visual design is appealing overall, some data visualizations were difficult to interpret.

2/5 users found features too advanced

Found platform less intuitive for beginners, and more advanced with features they don't interact with on a daily basis.

4/5 users would use app regularly

Claim they would use the website and app occasionally (75% of the time).

5/5 users found the UI design meets their expectations

Agree that the visual design aligns with their expectations for aesthetic appeal.

Revision 1: Simplified and consistent UI patterns, beginning with user registration.

Revision 2: Clearer navigation through budgeting information for a peace of mind.

Highlight menus, buttons and visual cues to guide the user through budget set up and review.

Revision 3: Familiar and consistent language.

Users can easily upload, view, edit, and organize their pet’s medical records.

Solution

Parachute app design validated based on market research

The project is designed as an actionable business plan. As a product visualization I designed mobile first because mobile phone
is the only way someone has access to the internet while on the go. Essential functionality must be available for mobile devices.
These findings are supported by financial and healthcare industry data:

Consumer Budgeting Habits

A survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of the American Bankers Association found that consumers continued to embrace digital banking channels, with 45% of bank customers using apps on phones or other mobile devices as their top option for managing their bank account and 27% using online banking via laptop or PC the most in the past 12 months.
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These findings are consistent with a recent FDIC survey that found the use of mobile banking increased sharply between 2017 and 2021, becoming the most prevalent primary method of account access.

Consumer Pet Medical Record Management Habits

According to WeBiotic 69% of millennials are using technology to keep track and monitor health of their pets—that includes the use of mobile apps. Advances in tech are improving the way we care for our pets, and apps today offer owners the ability to track their pets’ health habits, monitor playtime, connect with pet care services, and so much more.

The Parachute App

The Parachute app prototype can be tested on the left. The core features developed include a personalized budget planner and pet record-management storage solution. Additional expansions include educational resources and the AI assistance chatbot.

Expense Management: allows pet owners to create, track, and manage budgets related to their individual needs. Reminders and alerts can be set to serve for personal accountability.

Electronic Pet Medical Data Storage: enables pet’s health information to be maintained in one platform where owners can upload, edit, save medical records, and add notes, photos, and videos. A healthcare profile can be created for each pet and shared with trusted contacts or vets.

Educational Resources: where pet owners can learn about preventative health care, cross-reference information to be better informed.

AI Chatbot: a personal digital assistant to help owners navigate Parachute app and direct resources to those seeking guidance.

View Case Study

View Prototype