Odin's Organic Pet Boutique

What Content Should Be Included in the Site?

To answer this question, we decided upon the target audience, analyzed competitor sites, determined the use cases/key task flows for the site, and conducted a freelisting exercise with participants.

Who Is the Target Audience?

Common Characteristics

Since this was a fictitious site, we had to make assumptions on who would be customers of this pet shop and online users of it’s mobile site. The following are common characteristics of our target audience that we determined based on the the attributes of the pet shop, its inventory, and its services:

User Groups

We then determined the different user groups. We first focused on expertise with pets. It proved more complicated than just how many pets they owned and how long they owned them.

We also considered the relationship of pet expertise to experience with pet shops. We focused on the difference between having pets in the home and being a main caretaker, with the latter most likely having more experience with pet shops and subsequently online pet shops.

We considered the following questions when determining user groups:

We used these questions to create the following levels of expertise:

Personas

Lumping together the advanced and expert levels into one and considering the other characteristics along with a diverse audience, we created three different personas:

How Will the Target Audience Use the Site?

Use Cases / Key Task Flows

Based on the personas, we determined the three main use cases / key task flows for the site:

What Patterns & Content Already Exist in this Space?

Competitive Analysis

We started our process of content creation by examining the content and information architecture of pet shop websites that included a diverse range of products and services for a wide range of pets.

We looked at the following sites:

Most had a similar structure to Petco, which included "Shop by Pet" for both their products and pharmacy section along with a separate "Services" section. Screenshots taken from www.petco.com (2020).

What Content Does the Target Audience Expect?

Freelisting

We used a freelisting activity with participants to learn more about our users and what content they expect from a pet shop site. A summary of the activity and its results are presented below. AirTable was used to collect participants' responses remotely. A detailed chart of the results can be viewed here.

How Should the Content be Organized and Structured?

Card Sorting

Overall, we conducted three rounds of card sorts with 50 cards using Optimal Workshop. The items on these cards reflected items from our competitive analysis and freelisting activity.

The first was an open card sort conducted within the team to brainstorm and gather categories for the items. Open means that participants had to categorize all items and name the categories. Once each of us finished the sort, we came together to reach a consensus on what categories to include for subsequent sorts with target audience participants.

We then moved on to two rounds of hybrid card sorts with target audience participants. Participants were provided with the 50 items along with the categories we had decided upon as a group from the first card sort. Instead of doing a closed sort where participants would only be able to sort the items into the categories we gave them, we made it a hybrid card sort by still allowing participants to create their own categories if they felt like the ones provided did not work.

Below are the results from these three card sorts:

Early Site Mapping

Using the results from the card sort, we created the following site map:

Can the Target Audience Find What They Seek?

Tree Testing

Overall, we conducted two rounds of tree tests using Optimal Workshop to evaluate the information architecture of our site. The site map created from the card sorts was presented to target audience participants. They were instructed to use the site map to complete 3 tasks.

Below are the results from these two tree tests:

Visual Site Map

Using the results from the tree tests, we finalized the following visual site map:

Can the Target Audience Understand the Interface and Get on Track to Complete Tasks from the First Click?

Mock Ups

In order to evaluate the interaction design of our pages and features, we created mockups of the main and most complex pages and features involved in the key task flows for the site, including the home page, a products listing page, a date picker on a booking apppointment wizard page, and a card for booking a meet and greet on an adopting a pet page. The mockups of these pages and features are shown below:

First Click Testing

Using the mockups, we conducted one round of first click testing. Target participants were shown a page and asked to start to complete a task with a click. We had them do first clicks for 6 tasks, three tasks for the home page and one task for each of the other three pages. The results of these first clicks are shown below: