Pet-tential

E-commerce website design for shopping pet food and suppplies

---

Concept client:
Pet-tential
Sydney-based groomer and retailer of healthy pet food, toys, and
pet supplies. 
​
​Team:
Steven Peng

Duration:
2 weeks

Skills used:

• Research
• Card sorting
• Competitive/comparative analysis
• User flows
• Ideating
• Sketching
• Wireframing​
• Usability testing
• Prototyping​​​

Software used:

• Sketch
• Invision
• Optimal sort 
  

---

The brief

To add e-commerce to its site to appeal to a larger customer base. At the same time, Pet-tential wants to maintain its ‘small shop’ appeal and great customer service. 

The challenge

Design the e-commerce experience to Pet-tential’s website taking into account the information architecture of the website.

The approach

Design approach

The classic double diamond approach by the Design Council was used in this project.

• Discover - Finding out as much as possible about Pet-tential and their customers
• Define - Focussing on the information architecture and customer experience of the online shopping
• Develop - Designing the online shopping experience
• Deliver - Presenting the e-commerce website

Design Council © 2018

What will success look like?

Excellent shopping experience

• Online sales
• Website driving more traffic to the physical store
• Happy pets and pet owners

The research phase

Competitor analysis - What do others do?

Industry standard categories
Classifying by animal

• Dog
• Cat
• Fish
• Bird
• Reptile
• Small animal

Other​

• About us
• Expert advice

Competitor Analysis

Card sorting - how to organise the information logically? 

Conducted card sorting with the top 75 selling products that will be available for purchase online

1. Team of designers - Many different sub-categories similar to what we know at large pet stores, not what Pet-tential are after
2. Team of designers - Three different sub-categories under each animal. More structured, understandable and consistent
3. Open card sort with 11 users - Many different sub-categories
4. Closed card sort of three different sub categories with 12 users - 11 users agreed that they were appropriate and understandable

​Results
With user feedback, it was clear the three sub categories of Food, Care & Treatment, and Accessories were logical and understandable. 
In addition, Pet-tential’s small shop appeal differentiates itself from the larger pet stores with many sub-categories

1. Team of designers

2. Team of designers

3. Open card sort with 11 users

4. Closed card sort with 12 users

Comparator analysis

Looked into how the check out process is done with an e-commerce website familiar to one of the personas and also other potential features that could be implemented.

Comparator Analysis

Personas

The following personas were provided and the user flows were created from the information provided.

The design phase

Create a shopping experience that meets the needs of all the personas

• Dog and Cat guides with recommended products
• Dog & Cat expert partnering with Pet-tential to write the guides and answer questions both in-store and online
• Cross marketing with expert to be in-store on Saturdays for 2 hours
• Subscription feature added for repeat orders

Sketches

Sketching concepts of homepage, product category page and an article page.

Prototype - click to enlarge

​Usability testing

• Paper prototype
• Clickable prototype
• 2 rounds of usability testing (Paper and clickable prototype)
• Iterative design after each round

Information architecture

Concentrating on the online shopping experience first before considering elements of the rest of the website.

Interactive prototype

Clickable prototype of the Pet-tential website

Open prototype

© 2018 Steven Peng