Vet's Pocket

The Challenge

Research & Strategy

Ideation

Journey Map

Exploration & Iteration

Final Design

Dev Handoff

Learnings

THE CHALLENGE WE TOOK UP

Traditional veterinary apps are bulky, and complex, and primarily cater to the needs of large veterinary clinics. Solo veterinarians and vets on the move often find these solutions impractical for their specific requirements.

Field veterinarians are often on the move and are solo practitioners most of the time, so they have a hard time using traditional hospital management software. They don't have an effective way to keep track of their patient data. Even though there are software options available for traditional hospital management and pet owners, there is no proper one that works on a budget for the field vets or is a big nightmare to use. The challenge was to design a lightweight, intuitive application that facilitates patient tracking, record-keeping, and communication for vets without the need for a large complicated management application.

RESEARCH & PRODUCT STRATEGY

What were the Vets using before?

When in the field, veterinarians typically opt for the most flexible solution available to them.

Market Research: A look into what's out there.

I scoured the internet and App Store thinking there must be something that can help. This is a very common requirement for all in the Vet industry. Most of the options I came across were either expensive for a new person on the field (Digitail, VitusVet), desktop apps for big hospitals or clinics, or simply a nightmare to use (Animal Record On the Go).

Getting on the field to talk to real users revealed a lot of pain points.

I interviewed 5 vets who are field vets, which means they do not work in the clinic but are on the move most of the time. I interviewed both experienced field workers and recent college graduates about the applications that they use now, and what they have tried out. I also was able to get a clear view of their daily routine as a vet.

Conducting interviews with doctors presented significant challenges due to their busy schedules, making it difficult to find time for user interviews and observations.

They are a solo practitioner, they don't need half of the things that the existing clinical record management system has.

The existing applications are too confusing to use.

They usually go to places where they don't have access to desktops or might not have connectivity.

They end up paying for all the features that they do not need and won't be using.

Putting on my strategic designer hat to figure out the project direction and product requirements.

Once I had finished with the user research and identified the pain points, I went into the product strategy and requirement-gathering phase. Synthesizing from the research as well as talking to users about what tasks matter the most to them, I was able to identify the main touch points.

Preparation for a visit and taking patient history.

Add in the appointment and the initial data.

At the appointment, to record observations, treatments, and billing.

To check what materials they have on hand at the moment.

Maintaining and updating patient records.

IDEATION

From the findings of the user interviews and the touch points, I created a rough user journey map to get me started on the ideation process.

JOURNEY MAP

The journey map helped me break down the workflow into 4 major chunks, each accomplishing a distinct task.

Appointment: Once the vets get a new patient call, they have to either schedule an appointment (need to note down the place and time) and later have an online or in-person consultation (note down the observations, treatments, and billing).
Patient records: Maintain and track all the patient details, visits, and owner details.
Visit: Note down all the observations, treatment, and billing for a visit. Have them stored along with the patient. Schedule a follow-up appointment for the visit.
Inventory: Keep track of medical items that the user has in hand and what all they have used.

EXPLORATION AND ITERATION

Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability-Testing & Iterations

Throughout the design process, we iterated through multiple versions to refine the user experience. Usability tests provided valuable insights and highlighted missed areas. We went through 2 sketch versions, a low-fidelity wireframe, and finally a mid-fidelity Figma prototype for testing and improvement.

Sketches - Version 1

They needed options to know when their next visits were.

The marking of items needed for a visit was not used frequently. The feature to note down animal details was confirmed.

Sketches - Version 2

Users prioritized viewing upcoming appointments on the dashboard. So, the upcoming visits page will be the landing page in the future.

The users mentioned that they would like to view all the appointments in their Google calendar as well.

When recording a new patient call, they want to enter the owner's details first. Contrary to the assumption that the animal details are first to be entered.

Similarly, when searching for an animal, they were more comfortable in finding the owner first searching for the animal by the owner.

Wireframe

Adding more medical-related details to the animal record. The initial list that we had did not cover all the important details that needed to be recorded.

The layout was designed so that all the details for the visits were on a single page. This caused the users to get confused about how to find a section. So I decided to break down the data entry into chunks and make it into tabs so that navigation between elements will be easier. Easy to find the stuff that you need.

Ability to add all sorts of files as attachments.

Appointments

On the home screen, veterinarians can view all upcoming appointments along with their respective details. They also have the option to schedule new appointments for initial visits by utilizing the "new visit" button, or schedule follow-up appointments for existing visits.

Visits

Upon reaching the patient site, veterinarians can go through the necessary steps of a visit. They can add important details, such as images, attachments, recordings, and billing information. Additionally, veterinarians have the option to create a follow-up appointment during the visit.

Records, Billing, and Inventory

Veterinarians have the ability to monitor and manage patient and owner records, inventory, billing, and accounts.

DEV HANDOFF AND COORDINATION

Non-traditional developer handoff, user testing at all stages, and a close-knit collaboration

Since we were a small team, we did not have a traditional dev handoff. Instead of a formal handoff, where design documents are passed over the wall to developers with only a few points of contact between design and development, we had a highly collaborative and iterative environment. This ensured that I was available throughout the development process, we conducted regular checks-in with the vet coordinator to ensure that we got the veterinary information all correct and conducted usability testing in between the stages as well. This allowed us to create the first MVP of the product.

MY LEARNING

Some of the things that I learned while working on this project.

Wearing multiple hats: Throughout the design, I took on the role of user researcher, product designer, and project manager. It was fun dabbling in a lot of areas and made me realize what it took to run a small team.
Real-world messy design: There are a lot of overlaps between different roles, it made me realize that design in the real world is messy.
Talking to clients and seeing them use the product is different: For user research, the more you watch what the users use and do, the more you find their problems. It's way better than just doing a user interview. During the initial interview, the users were mostly talking about how they were not able to keep track of their patient records, but while observing them, we were able to find the additional problems in inventory, animal history, and recording of data.
Articulate design decisions: When the clients are people who are in a field that has nothing to do with UX or technology. You need to better articulate your design decisions to make them understand.
Fast-paced research: Doctors, especially on the field vets, are very busy people. It's hard-pressed to get their time for user testing. So we need to be prepared fully and conduct the user testing really fast.
Project Management: I learned how to manage a project end-to-end including getting product requirements, creating a product roadmap, and coordinating between different stakeholders.

VET'S POCKET