Benny & Suki’s

Website redesign for a local pet groomer

Overview

Benny & Suki’s is a local grooming service that opened up their business during the height of the pandemic but due to the halt of construction on their indoor space, they are looking to focus on the look and feel of their online presence and continue to grow their business with an updated website.

The Challenge

Redesign an existing website that is responsive. Rebrand and create a new look and feel to the website.

 

Role

UX Researcher

UX/UI Designer

Timeline

4 weeks (80 hours)

Tools

Figma

Miro

 Empathize

Competitor Analysis

Conducting a competitor analysis allowed me to get a better understanding of the local small biz shops in my area. By doing a deep dive into each one of the these shops, I was able to identify the strengths and weaknesses and what I can focus on as I began to think about ways in which I can help improve Benny & Suki’s website.

Key findings

  • Most of the competitors selected are neighborhood small business owners who provide only grooming services and a few that do offer additional services (ie: daycare, walking, boarding)

  • All competitors have responsive websites that allow for easy rendering on different devices, as users are mostly on mobile it would allow for easy access

  • Most of the websites do need improvement on visual hierarchy and overall organization of the site, there is a lack of consistency and information that may prevent a user from feeling invited

Research

Before I started, I needed to get a better understanding of the grooming industry. Through primary and secondary research it would help me uncover what trends there were, how grooming fit into the bigger picture of the pet industry, the demographic of pet owners and how the pandemic has impacted the overall industry.

Market Research

The pet industry overall has experienced a significant growth and the rise of pet adoption and humanization are driving the increased spending on various pet products, such as grooming, accessories, and food.

  • It’s estimated the US pet industry reached $99 Billion in 2020

  • More than 67% of American Households own at least one pet

  • 31% of pet industry customers are millenials (baby boomers 29% and Gen X 26%)

  • 41% of dog owners will use the internet to pre-shop for grooming serivces that are available in their community

  • he grooming industry is transforming into upscale boutiques and salons that provude a multitude of services and retail products

Pandemic Impact

  • 21% of pet owners have spent more oney on their pets during COVID than prepandemic

  • With people spending more time at home due to COVID, demand for pet sitting and boarding declined

  • Shelter in place orders required many operators in the Pet Grooming and Boarding industry to temporarily close earlier in 2020

  • 3 trends to look for as the industry continues to evolve:

    • automation of retail spaces

    • more purpose driven shopping experiences

    • new ways for brands to engage with consumers digitally

User Interviews

Through user interviews, I was able to gain better insight into what customers experienced when trying to find a groomer, learn about their needs, motivations and frustrations. In the process, I interviewed 6 participants who are all pet owners and have had experience looking for a groomer.

Key Findings

  • Most of the participants use Google when searching for a groomer and from there will dive deeper by researching on Yelp or other social media platforms

  • Important features that the participants look for on a website is an online booking system, photos, information that includes pricing and reviews that are pulled in from a reliable source

  • Booking methods are mostly preferred on mobile devices

  • The participants found that without a online booking system, it made it difficult to get in touch with the groomer to book an appointment and the lack of transparency with available created a lot of back and forth

  • Deciding factors include photos of haircuts specific to breed, overall reviews and availability that worked with the participants time frame

User Persona 

Based on the research and user interviews, I was able to create this user persona, Abigail. Abigail represents the millenial demographic and through user interviews, I was able to pull in insights that helped guide the design process as I kept her goals, needs, motivations and frustrations in mind.

Define

Project Goals

After identifying the users goals, my next step was to identify the business goals, in addition to the technical considerations to ensure that there is alignment and common goals that would help with the decision making process.

Product Feature Roadmap

With the information that I gathered during the research phase and combining it with my findings with the project goals, I was able to identify which elements of the website would be the most important to include in the design.

 

Site Map

Now that I’ve identified what features will be prioritized on the website, creating this site map will help me organize and visualize the information that will be structured on the website.

Ideate

Task Flow

To determine where to start designing, I created this task flow that represents the main task that the user will complete. By showing the flow of the task, it will help me determine what screens will be a part of my design.

User Flow

Reflecting back on the persona goals, the next step I took was to create the user flow that would identify the different paths that she would take to complete different tasks.

Wireframes

By creating the user flow and task flow, it helped me identify a step by step analysis of the users flow and how Abigail would interact between the different designs. I first sketched out the homepage to help me visualize the possible layouts and then created the low/mid fidelity wireframes that allowed me to add more details into how the different elements would be laid out within each of the screens.

 

Branding

I reflected back on the mood board and created the brand style tile that I used as a guide to create the UI Kit. As I focused primarily on the mobile screens for the high fidelity prototype, I included the main elements that were used in the mobile screens.

 

Prototype & Test

High Fidelity Prototype

Although I had created low/mid fidelity wireframes for desktop, I realized that I wanted to create a prototype based on my research findings on how all the participants expressed that most of the time they’re using their mobile devices when looking for or booking a grooming appointment.

Usability Testing

A usability test was conducted with 4 participants on a high fidelity mobile prototype, all were conducted via zoom in which the participants shared their screen as I conducted the test. All participants were able to complete each task and felt that it was very straightforward and found the website to be very informative.

Test Objectives

  • Test and gather feedback to get users overall impression of website

  • Test to get an understanding if the features & information is intuitive to the user

  • Test users ability to easily navigate and book an appointment

 Participants

  • 3-5 participants

  • 30-40 year olds

  • Pet owners who have little to some experience booking an online grooming appointment

Tasks

  • Scroll through the website and tell me your initial thoughts

  • Navigate to the Services & Pricing section

  • Find grooming selection and book an appointment

 

Test Findings

Based on the usability test, I was able to compile the findings and laid them out to find different patterns I observed. I broke it out screen by screen to identify certain behaviors, whether it was a success or a pain point.

Summary of insights

  • All participants were able to successfully complete each task with a 100% success rate

  • Homepage was easy to navigate and participants found that it was very informative with all the necessary information upfront

  • When looking for Services & Pricing, 50% of participants would have known to go to the hamburger menu icon to open up the menu and the other 50% of the participants would go to the Grooming section to find Services & Pricing

  • 100% of participants correlated the dropdown menu from Services & Pricing to the card (packages) and how pricing would changes based on the size of the dog

  • Participants did find it helpful that the package listed out what services were included and they didn’t have to go search around somewhere else on the page/site

  • All participants found the booking flow to be easy and intuitive, with 50% of them wondering if Grooming Services section can have “optional” noted in there for additional treatments or a la carte

Recommendations/Suggestions

  • Ability to upload photos (in booking flow) near comments section to show groomer of similar haircut

  • Add additional Book Now CTA near Treatment/A La Cart section of Services & Pricing (what if a user just wants to book a Treatment or just a A La Cart)

  • Package (card) to integrate add on’s and combine into card

  • Redirect link from Confirmation Page to map for location

Priority Revisions

Insights from the affinity map allowed me to prioritize areas of the website that I should revise. I based the prioritization on areas that participants pointed out as a pain point or an area of confusion. I also included some recommendations on additional features that would be most impactful and would bring value.

 

High Fidelity Wireframes

Reflection

I knew right off the bat I wanted to work with this client to help redesign their website to make it usable and informative for new and current dog parents like myself. The client was initially informed of the idea but due to constraints on communication I had to proceed without much direction from the client. Although I didn’t get the input directly from the client in the process of the redesign, I was able to make decisions based on my research findings, usability testing and feedback from my mentor and group crits. I found that feedback was so essential to be able to learn and grow, and to venture outside of your bubble and get different perspectives.
Next steps is to present this to the business owners and get their thoughts and perspective and see if this is a design that they’d want to implement on their end. I hope that this step will open up their eyes and show them that even small changes and updates would do wonders for their website.