Building Trust Through User Experience
My Role
User Research (Survey Design, Interviews)
Prototyping
Video Production
UI Design
Group Capstone Project
During this 10-week Capstone project, our team of five UX designers worked with Rover to build users’ trust in Rover’s new assignment model. After testing our solutions with users, we found that our seven design proposals significantly improved levels of trust.
Client
Rover provides on-demand pet services like dog walking and pet sitting through their network of independent walkers and sitters.
Problem
How do you build trust with customers when moving them to a new business model?
Project Summary
An app feature, a community center, and a video
My focus was on creating a way for customers to save their favorite walkers. I also focused on a proposal for a Rover community center: a place for users to connect with Rover in person and a place for providers to get in-depth training. And, as part of our team’s work on enhancing provider profiles, I shot, produced, and edited the video content for the redesign.
I wrote the research guides for interviews and designed the surveys we sent out.
Understanding the Business
Who's Involved?
Browse vs. Assign
Pet owners want some control in picking a walker
Moving to an assignment model allows Rover to be more profitable while offering users a more immediate booking experience. Rover has launched the new model in select markets, Seattle being one of them.
However, the new model introduces issues of trust with customers, and Rover is seeing reluctance in users switching to Rover Now.
When Rover started, customers could browse through profiles to find a new dog walker or other pet services provider. To increase repeat business, they would like to move the business to an assignment model, Rover Now, where the user books a provider by requesting a time and location. Think of it like Uber for dog walking.
It's like Uber for dog walking.
Understanding the User
The immediate feedback from casual conversation, formal interviews, and online research was often negative or had an overtone of distrust. Our foundational research uncovered negative press about animals being harmed while with Rover providers. Many of our interview subjects mentioned those headlines or expressed their concern for the trustworthiness of their assigned provider.
These findings gave our team a picture of the scope of the problem statement: The problem is big.
Many Rover customers have negative feelings about the service.
Surveying Users
I surveyed current Rover users and found that most of them value training, certification, and background checks. But, few of them knew much about how Rover goes about providing those safeguards.
Surveying Providers
To better understand the scope of the problem, we conducted a survey with active Rover providers, in which we learned that even the providers don’t trust Rover’s certification and training requirements.
Design Proposals
Our research gave us plenty of ideas to explore.
We focused on solutions that would have the greatest impact on trust.
I took the lead on two of our design proposals and created a video for a third.
“The proposal to partner with a brick 'n mortar establishment was thinking outside of the box. Kudos.”
- Director of UX, Rover
Rover Community Center
Solutions beyond the screen
Rover providers told us that they want more training and certification.
Users told us they want to know more about providers and how they are certified.
I pitched the community center idea to my team. The proposal was met with some resistance. Some team members were hesitant to take our solutions out of the digital realm. By reminding the group that the issue of trust requires bold solutions, I persuaded them to include the idea in our client presentation.
Partnering with a business like Mud Bay or All the Best Pets is a way to solve this big-picture trust hurdle.
Providers can receive in-person training and get help creating their enhanced profiles. Rover customers can stop by and meet providers face to face and see the training in action.
Provider Profile Video
Human connection through media
I shot, produced, and edited a short video starring our teammate.
The video is an example of how we can create trust through transparency. Users can see the provider's personality and get a feel for how she interacts with pets.
This enhancement to provider profiles tested well with Rover users. It was a big hit in our client presentation too.
Prefurred Providers
Give customers some control over who cares for their pet
The #1 requested feature: a way to save your favorite provider.
When we talked with Rover user Anders, he told us a story about how he had booked a dog walk using Rover Now. He and his dog had a wonderful experience. He wanted to reconnect with his new favorite provider but couldn’t find a way to do it through the current app.
We created Prefurred Providers. The user’s five favorite providers will be pinged first when requesting a new on-demand walk.
It’s an easy way to save your favorites while maintaining Rover’s assignment model.
The challenge here is giving customers some control over who is walking their dog. With this design solution, customers are still assigned a walker, but they now have a better chance of being matched with walkers they already trust.
If none of their favorites are available, they receive a new walker that has been "Prefurred" by a Rover customer like them.
User Testing
Prototyping for trust
The challenge with this project was the scope of the problem statement. Building trust in a company goes beyond the app’s ease of use. So, in our usability testing, we focused not only on the usability of the prototypes but, more importantly, how we could quantify the new features’ effect on a customer’s trust.
Usability test with active Rover user
Usability Testing
Pet Care Trust Fall
We lead each study participant through a few tasks using the current Rover app.
We then had them do the same tasks using prototypes of our new features.
After each task we had them rate, among other things, their level of trust in Rover.
Results
Moving the needle on trust
Through testing seven proposals designed by our team, we were able to move existing Rover users’ overall trust rating from a 4 to a 6. We found that the cumulative effect of all the design proposals is what had the greatest impact.
Current Rover Experience
New Proposed Experience
Outcome
Our team gave a strong presentation to the client. After our in-class presentation at SVC, the UX Director at Rover invited us to present our design proposals at Rover HQ. We presented to 12 in-house product designers and a VP. The feedback in the room was very positive.
Thinking Big
Direct from Rover HQ
“The final deliverable was concise and indicative of the high level of investment, detail, and focus committed to the project.
The working group unpacked the problem to solve, then focused on evidence-based optimizations or concepts that agile teams could iterate against and measure.
There were seven proposals in total, each comprising of a primary problem (based on data/research), recommendation, and proposed methods for assessing success.”
- Derek Punsalan
Director, User Experience