Challenges

The freelance economy has grown rapidly, exposing limitations in traditional rating systems and user experiences on platforms like Rover. For this project, we aim to address and rectify the prevalent issue encountered on the Rover website. Rover, an online platform facilitating pet care services, such as pet sitting, dog boarding, and dog walking, plays a pivotal role in connecting pet owners with freelance pet sitters. This project focuses on improving Rover's pet sitting service, specifically addressing the shortcomings of its current rating system for freelancers. Our goal is to enhance both the rating mechanism and overall user experience, making the platform more effective and satisfying for pet owners.

What I Accomplished

Identified key reasons pet owners were unhappy with the mechanism of the rating system
Redesign app interfaces to improve overall user experience
Design and implemented a new end to end pet sitting app within 5 weeks that improved users' feedback, elaboration information, and enhanced pet owners experience

My Role

UX Designer & Researcher — Interaction Design, Visual Design, User Research, App Design

Team

Sylvia Tsai, UX Designer & Researcher 
Izza Babar, UX Designer 
Yuhong Mo, UX Designer

Timeline

Sep - Oct, 2023 (5 weeks)

What is Rover?

Rover is founded in 2011, which connects dog and cat parents with pet sitters across the US, Canada, UK, and the Europe. Rover is an online platform facilitating pet care services, such as pet sitting, dog boarding, and dog walking, plays a pivotal role in connecting pet owners with freelance pet sitters.

Rover application offers a means for pet owners to secure freelance pet sitters when their schedules prevent them from taking care of their pets and when alternative family or friend support is unavailable.

Many individuals today share their homes with their pets, as of 2023, 66% of U.S. household (86.9 million homes) own a pet.

Problem

Unclear Rating System Between Pet Owners and Pet Sitters

The existing Rover rating system lacks clarity and specificity, leaving pet sitters and owners unable to grasp their performance nuances. Vague feedback hampers freelancers’ improvement efforts, leading to a lack of motivation in standing out and diminishing their drive to enhance skills, negatively impacting the platform’s user experience.

The page only shows the rating of the pet sitters and open-ended reviews for pet owners to write whatever responses they want

Research & Planning

Interview

Following my preliminary research, I segmented the interviews into two participant categories: pet owners and pet sitters. I aimed to use these interviews to identify concerns related to the existing Rover rating system and the user experience of the website. By conducting interviews from both perspectives, I sought a comprehensive understanding of the issues that need to be considered in the design process.

Insight

01| Vague Rating System

They express a lack of confidence in the rating system's results due to the simplistic 1-5 star scale. They prefer the option to provide ratings for pet sitters or owners using descriptive words or specific metrics, believing it would enhance the reliability of the feedback. Therefore, we’ll try to design separate of criteria for rating reviews, so users can provide a more detailed reviews for all the pet sitters.

02| Safe & Privacy Concern

From our research and interview findings, it became evident that Rover does not mandate background checks for both pet sitters and owners. Concerns such as insufficient responsiveness, unexpected no-shows, robbery, and neglecting to clean up after pets have raised concerns among users. A safety issue in the app's rating system was identified when users provided documentation and evidence about a sitter who lied and caused harm to a dog, resulting in paralysis. Despite this, Rover continued to display her profile with only positive reviews listed first, indicating a safety concern with the app's rating system.

03| Constant Status Report

When seeking a pet sitter, besides the price, the qualities of responsibility and punctuality stand out as the most crucial to pet owners. Factors such as responsibility, timeliness, communication, and the overall well-being of their pets are taken into account. Providing regular status reports can be beneficial for pet owners, enabling them to promptly assess the well-being of their pets under the care of the pet sitter.

Low-Fidelity Sketches

During the low-fidelity session, we chose to conduct individual brainstorming sessions within the team to enhance creativity and diversify solution options. Leveraging the research and interview findings, we aimed to address the current website issues. This approach allows each team member to focus on addressing what they consider the most crucial issues, devising solutions that align with their individual thought processes.

We endeavored to implement natural language processing to compute the frequency of word usage, revealing the most frequently mentioned skills of the pet sitters. Additionally, we plan to integrate reviews from the same users to mitigate redundant feedback and display the average score of these users' reviews.

Introduce a "Journey" feature that fulfills owners' requirements for receiving constant status report from pet sitters. This instant feedback also enables sitters to promptly receive instructions from owners. As a result, both sides can monitor the sitting process through segmented tasks, and owners can also provide reviews in this session.

Based on our interview result, we have implemented distinct metrics for pet owners to evaluate sitters. Owners can rate skills on a 1 to 5 scale and provide reviews below. Departing from the conventional 5-star system, we try to use emoji-based ratings to enhance user comprehension. Additionally, we will include 2 to 3 concise questions at the end of the rating system for users to answer.

We aim to offer an interaction method for pet owners to rate sitters. Users will have the ability to swipe through the questions and metrics provided to evaluate the sitters.

Usability Testing

Having devised multiple strategies for a single feature encompassing diverse interfaces, interactions, and solutions, we proceeded to conduct usability testing to discern the user-preferred option. This testing method facilitates the comparison of various aspects, including interface designs, feature options, and interaction methods, in order to pinpoint the version or solution favored by users. Our objective in usability testing is to enable users to evaluate and compare different choices or solutions, determining which one better suits their needs and preferences. During the design process, we received some interesting feedback from our users. We tested multiple versions of these features, including the features that are more suitable for all the users. Below are the solutions that we get from the usability testing.

1| Remain 5-Star Rating System

Despite providing multiple evaluation forms, users consistently preferred the five-star rating system due to its intuitive nature and widespread recognition. We’ll add 5 metrics for users to improve this system.

2| Quick Reply in Instant Feedback

Users prefer Quick Reply options such as emojis or predefined messages like "Oops!" or "Thank you!", which can save them time. We have integrated these options into the instant feedback section of the Journey Feature.

3| Combine the Card-Swiping with Rating

We have integrated the card-swiping feature with the rating process to provide an interaction rating method. It can also enhances user engagement during the rating process.

4| Using Pop-Ups

In the quick review section, we have employed a pop-up format to signify to users that this is a brief process. This feature prevents users from skipping the rating process after the service.

User Journey Map

The user journey shows the path a users follow as users go through the Rover website

Review Page

Upon logging into the app, the initial page displays reviews for all pet sitters in the user's location. However, the current site lacks a metric filter, preventing users from selecting specific keywords from the reviews. To address this, we've introduced a metric filter to facilitate the search for reliable pet sitters. Additionally, individual ratings are now included on the profile page, providing users with a clearer understanding of the ratings they receive from different customers.

This is the menu section of the app. It shows all the essential information about the pet sitters. Users can click on the dashboard to proceed.

This page displays all the information that will be visible on the pet sitter's profile. We have implemented a metric filter to enable pet owners to view the individual scores for each skill.

Journey Page

Once users hire a pet sitter on the website, they can access the "Journey" page to monitor their pet's status. This page provides a continuous report for users to track task completion. Owners can also engage in instant chat with sitters to provide feedback or stay informed about their pet's activities. Additionally, sitters should utilize this page to promptly inform users of any pet emergencies.

We create a new feature called “Journey”. This feature allows the users to have a constant report of their pets. Pet sitters can also receive feedback upon each tasks they perform and helps them improve upon their journey and keep track of their performance.

Rating System

We've developed two rating systems for users to select from. By clicking on the "Begin Rating" button, users will utilize our interaction rating method designed for all users to evaluate sitters. This method involves swiping cards to assign star ratings for individual questions and swiping to address other queries. Alternatively, if users opt to skip the rating, the system will automatically redirect them to the "Quick Review" section. This section offers a shorter rating process with only three questions, aimed at encouraging users to provide reviews more frequently.

The users can click on the start rating to begin rating the sitters. They can select the number of stars they wish to assign to the sitters and then swipe the cards to rate other metrics. We've integrated the swipe method into the rating system to enhance user engagement and interaction, encouraging users to be more involved in rating the sitters.

We provide a minimal of five metrics system that helps to distinguish between good and bad freelancers effectively. Users can rate each skill on a scale of 1 to 5 stars and then swipe the card to evaluate other metrics. After rating all five metrics, users can also leave comments. We have included a blank space for pet owners to freely express any additional comments they may have for the sitters.

1| Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness implies that the pet sitters reliably fulfill all the tasks requested by the owners for their pets.

2| Communication

Communication entails that the pet sitters promptly inform the owners of any situations concerning the pet and respond to messages in a timely manner.

3| Safety

Safety refers to whether the pet sitters are attentive to the pet's well-being and whether they create a secure environment for the pet.

4| Punctuality

Punctuality encompasses the timely completion of tasks by pet sitters, including adhering to designated drop-off and pickup times for the pets in their care.

5| Expertise

Expertise encompasses the level of protection maintained while caring for pets, including understanding animal behavior, following safety procedures, and readiness for emergencies.

Quick Review

This “Quick Review” page appears when users opt to skip the rating section after the “Journey” page. Users can select from a predefined list of metrics to describe their experience. This process enables us to gather more detailed feedback from all users, enhancing the reliability of the scores displayed for sitters on Rover. As a result, users will place greater trust in the reviews provided for individual pet sitters.

The page offers an alternative rating method for all users. Users have the option to describe their experience using the predefined metric list or add any additional keywords they deem relevant.

What's Next

Pet Owner’s Rating System

For this project, our primary focus has been on enhancing the experience for pet owners. However, I believe it's equally important to implement a rating system for pet sitters to evaluate pet owners. During our interviews with pet sitters, they highlighted a key concern: the current site does not allow them to view any ratings of pet owners. Although pet sitters are permitted to rate pet owners after completing services, these ratings and comments do not appear on any owner profiles. Consequently, this lack of information about pet owners may pose safety risks for pet sitters. Pet sitters should have the ability to assess whether they want to care for a pet based on additional information about the owners. By addressing this issue, we can enhance safety measures for pet sitters and create a more secure environment for both sitters and owners.

Pet Profile Check

The pet profile check should allow owners to upload their pet's medical records or undergo a more secure background check for the pet. This measure aims to prevent pet sitters from caring for sick or unhealthy pets. Some owners may falsely claim that their pets are in good health, only for the pet's true health issues to be discovered later. This can create significant challenges for pet sitters, especially when dealing with pets requiring specialized care due to illness. By implementing a rating system that provides a pet profile for each owner to update their pet's current health status, we can ensure that pet sitters are matched with healthy pets, thus avoiding potential complications.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

This project has significantly enhance my problem-solving skills as I navigated through the complexities of the existing site. Identifying issues within the current platform and devising improved solutions to address users' challenges proved to be a demanding yet rewarding endeavor. The research and interview phase of this project consumed the most time, as I deemed it crucial to establish a solid foundation of knowledge before delving into the design process. Conducting interviews was particularly enlightening, as it provided valuable insights into potential design enhancements that could streamline the user experience across the entire app. Interviews proved to be an invaluable resource for generating ideas, as each participant offered unique perspectives on areas for improvement. This is also my first digital design project on improving an existing website especially this is a very successful platform in pet sitting market. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire design journey, from optimizing user experience to crafting the UI design of the website. I've long wanted to cultivate some design skills, and this project ended up being a major contributing factor in my decision to take real steps toward supplementing my UX design abilities.

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