Tackling a New Type of Design Challenge

As a recent grad of Flatiron School's Part Time UX/UI Online program, I had spent a fair amount of time over many months exercising the design process from start to finish. From receiving a project brief to drafting wireframes and clickable prototypes, it's a wonder how anyone manages to do this while balancing a full time job. Was I successful? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. However, now that I have officially graduated and have begun my job hunt, it is time to practice my newly obtained skills. Flatiron has seen to give us several options for honing my new design muscles, but the one I am most interested in attempting first is to attempt a design challenge from the opposing specialty I had chosen. I had chosen the UI track, so I wandered over to the UX modules and chose a UX Design Challenge: Propose an App Design.

Tackling a UX Design challenge after spending so many weeks tackling UI challenges seems like a rather simple transition, so I decided to take this step by step and break it down in a similar fashion.

The project brief states that I am to propose a native app version of an existing animal hospital website. After observing the options, I chose to go with West Loop Veterinary Care clinic because to me, it felt the readiest for the transition to an app: as far as interface and site mapping goes, it seemed the most complete and organized.

Beginning with domain research, I looked at the Banfield Pet Hospital app first, since Banfield Pet Hospital is well known and trusted, they had to have a reliable app, right?

The features of the website seemed really useful and good: you set up a profile for your pet and from there you can track their wellness plan, weight management, vaccine schedule and schedule appointments and chat with a vet whenever you need to. Upon reading some reviews, it appeared that it sometimes had trouble loading the vet chat screens or couldn’t connect to the server. Whether this was user error or if the app just does too much for it to run smoothly is unclear. However, most of the reviews were positive with users stating that they enjoyed seeing all of their pet’s information in one spot and that the user interface was pleasing and easy to use.

Another app I looked at was Book My Vet which was a companion to the online booking module for Barry’s Point Vet Clinic. Some features were similar: select a favorite vet branch and clinic, book appointments from your mobile device and get maps to direct you to the branches. There was only one review which stated that while the app worked, there was no way of viewing current appointments until the last page of setting up a new appointment and wanted a way of getting there from the home page.

Since the task calls for streamlining the process of finding and booking a vet, that was going to be the focus of my app map. Now, to be honest, I was a little nervous. I haven’t done an app map in several weeks and felt a little rusty, but after a quick google search and a quick look back at my own personal app maps to refresh the knowledge, it was time to get to work.

Focusing on the act of making vet appointments, I made sure to keep the app as simple as possible, making sure onboarding was clear and short leading straight to the home screen where the user would have four page options to choose from: about, resources, make an appointment and contact. Simplifying the more expansive menu options on the website down to just the essentials of each page I felt gave the user an easier and more efficient experience, along with ensuring the bottom navigation was simple, only having a back button and a shortcut to the home page.

While it was strange to not go all the way and full out design mockups and prototypes (which would be crazy to ask someone to do in a week), it was a good exercise and I am excited to try more challenges as I embark on this job search process. I think I might like flexing my UX muscles.