Vanessa Palladino

Design Strategist

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Vanessa Palladino

Design Strategist

Vanessa Palladino

Design Strategist

Rover - Pet Sitting App

Introduced simplified availability management on Rover, the pet sitting booking platform.

Industry

Lifestyle

My Role

UX Designer Lead

Timeline

1 week sprint

Link

https://www.rover.com/app/

Challenge

The current design of the Rover app poses significant challenges for pet sitters, as their availability status automatically changes to ‘away’ every few months, and a complex user journey is required to return to ‘active’ status, leading to user frustration and a high risk of abandonment.

The main challenge was to improve user flow to facilitate availability management.

Goal

Create a more intuitive process for pet sitters to update their availability status by adding new features.

Challenge

In the face of ever-evolving cyber threats and a competitive tech market, Evina needed to develop its website to showcase its new products to a diverse and international group of users and demonstrate the game-changing impact of its products.

The website had an unintuitive user navigation. This meant that different user groups could not easily find the product that met their specific needs.

Results

A revamped information architecture that incorporated the new products, targeted UX writing for each user group, and improved SEO resulted in a clearer user journey that drove traffic to the site and increased user retention.

The Context

1.
The Context

Rover is a pet sitter booking platform, available on desktop and app, with a unique interface that offers two distinct user experiences:

One dedicated to dog owners looking for pet sitters.
The other for pet sitters looking for dogs to look after.

For this sprint, I focused on the mobile app version from a pet sitter’s point of view.

The Challenge

2.
The Challenge

The Rover app presents two main challenges for pet sitters when managing their availability status.

The Macro Challenge:

The availability status automatically changes to ”away” after a certain period of time. The user will receive a notification and an email informing them of this change which, if not seen by the user, may result in missed booking opportunities.

The Macro Challenge:

The availability status automatically changes to ”away ” after a certain period of time. The user will receive a notification and an email informing them of this change which, if not seen by the user, may result in missed booking opportunities.

The Micro Challenge:

The process to return to “active” status is so complex and unintuitive that users give up. The status modification page requires several minutes of navigation and causes intense frustration, as users struggle to figure out how to reset their status to “active.”

This brings us to the main identified challenge: Improve user flow to facilitate pet sitters’ availability management.

So where does this alleged user frustration come from?

The Research

3.
The Research

4.
The Pit of the Problem

I started with a usability test, seeing the time constraint, I was able to conduct two tests, which gave me a clear picture of the current user flow.

Featured below: "The pet sitter user flow: changing the status from away to active."

I started with a usability test, seeing the time constraint, I was able to conduct two tests, which gave me a clear picture of the current user flow.

Featured below: "The pet sitter user flow: changing the status from away to active."

The Pit of the Problem

The Problem Statement

Pet sitters need a simple, intuitive interface so that they can update their activity status quickly and easily, enabling them to better manage their availability and avoid missing out on pet-sitting opportunities.

The Problem Statement

The Three Key Main Issues

1. The user flow has too many steps

2. The flow is not intuitive

3. The user ends up getting lost

Big plus, it’s a business risk!

There’s a RISK OF DROP-OFF BEHAVIOR.

Ideation Phase

Inspired by the competitor analysis, I was able to create paper wireframes and the basis of what would become my hi-fi prototype.

The competitor analysis of Rover’s main direct competitors

Big plus, it’s a business risk!

There’s a RISK OF DROP-OFF BEHAVIOR.

5.
Ideation Phase

Gudog has a clear CTA in the calendar section that is hard to miss and updates the pet sitter’s status in a second.

Pawshake has an interesting availability management system that filters by service, which is closer to what Rover does.

The paper wireframe

I sketched out some of the features that worked best in the existing app to create a seamless user journey and give users at least 2 different user journeys to complete the same action: a clear CTA, a clear redirect, an on/off away toggle, and a more structured calendar.

The Optimized User Flows to Change Availability

I optimized two user flows for pet sitters to complete the same action: activating or deactivating their availability.The competitor analysis of Rover’s main direct competitors

6.
The Optimized User Flows to Change Availability

The first flow is the calendar flow.

Let's explore this in detail

A. The Home Page

Pet sitters have a clear call to action right on the home page. The green, branded button is unmissable.

B. The Calendar Services Feature

Pet sitters can first filter by the services they offer, all at once or individually (vs. just one at a time), and then select the dates to edit.

C. The Confirmation Pop-Up

Confirmation of the availability change is set up as a clear pop-up that gives the user the option to proceed to the next step in the user flow and respond to booking requests, or to ignore and close the application.

The second optimized flow is the notification flow.

Let's explore this in detail

A. The User’s Profile Page

The main change is on the user’s profile page, where a single availability toggle for all services has been added at the top of the service settings, along with a helpful tooltip. This replaces the original design, which required users to go into each service individually to edit their availability status.

Additional notes

There are several important issues here, that I would have addressed if I had had more time:

+ UX Writing issue: The wording of “active” and “away” creates confusion, as both terms are used to indicate opposing statuses. “Active” suggests the opposite of both “away” and “inactive,” which makes it unclear which state is currently selected.

+ UX Design issue: Additionally, the visual representation adds to this confusion: both “active” and “away” options display a filled-in toggle, making it difficult for users to tell which status is actually active, as the same visual style is used for opposing options.

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