THE TEAM
Delivered in my position as Senior Product Designer at Mad Paws, in close collaboration with my product manager, tech lead and engineers.
MY ROLE
Product Design
User Interviews
Prototyping & User Testing
Cross-Functional Alignment
DATE
January 2023 – October 2023
New pet sitters want to feel in control and supported. A rebuild of the sitter application ironed out friction points, doubling conversion rates in the process.
Completion rate improvement
21.8% to 49.34%
Completed in under 30 minutes
60% of applicants (up from 7%)
Replacing 3rd party course
$6,000 annual savings
Background
Mad Paws is Australia’s largest pet care marketplace.
The sitter application, vital activating new sitters, was suffering from poor performance that we wished to improve:
- Only 21.8% completion
- 33% of applicants took more than 4 hours to complete
- A major drop-off occurred due to a 3rd party sitter course
- Applicants lacked support when selecting services and setting prices
How might we shorten and streamline the sitter application without compromising on safety and blowing out scope?
Existing tech supercharges project
Another reason this project made sense to tackle was because we could re-use our in house Stepper SDK created for the Pet Profile.
It had proven to be highly performant, especially on mobile, with high conversion rates. This choice was one of the most important in terms of allowing this large project to be delivered so quickly.
Discovery
I completed 10 user interviews with sitters to understand their pain points with the existing application.
“I remember there was some sort of training thing that I had to go through. It did take a while for me to build up the motivation to actually finish that.”
Key learnings
- Most sitters think the sitter application is long.
- Sitters think the course is long but recognise its importance.
- Sitters don’t feel supported when setting prices and selecting services to offer
Design highlights
Multiple prototypes were tested with sitters before finalising the design of the new sitter application.
One task per screen
Applicants struggled especially at the price setting and service selection screen. This was partially because they had to do both complex tasks on one screen.
In the redesign we ensured that cognitive load was eased by separating out complex tasks to one per screen.
Contextual learning
Applicants stumble when selecting services to offer, setting prices and writing their bio. These are complex tasks which require support and education.
To tackle this we employed a contextual learning approach: providing helpful information directly at the moment it’s necessary.
Build sitter course within application
The previous course could take sitters hours to complete (a 3rd of applicants took more that 4 hours) and was the main drop-off point.
We condensed the course to 8 questions targeting the main causes of major safety incidents – giving applicants a much greater chance of retaining this critical information and completing the application.
Setting the sitter up for success
Overnight services have the most demand, so we want to match our supply and set new sitters up for success by encouraging them to offer these services within the application.
As a result of this push, 84% of applicants choose to offer overnight services (up from 77%), giving them more chance of activating and improving our marketplace efficiency.
The right first impression
I also delivered a new landing page page which is the entry point into the sitter application.
This now sets the tone for sitters to expect a modern and trustworthy experience, and also brings the sitter flow in line with the Mad Paws branding which was launched in March 2023.
Sitter supply unlocked
With the doubling of completion rates over the old application, we have discovered a lot of freedom with the supply side of our marketplace.
It has allowed us to rely solely on organic acquisition, reducing our spend on paid sitter acquisition.
The added headroom also allows us to add some friction back into the flow to increase sitter quality:
- Mandatory photo gallery upload
- Mandatory police checks
Reflections
I’m proud of the delivering a polished and performant rebuild of the sitter application, while managing scope without skimping on user outcomes.
Another learning has been how improving conversion in one area of the user journey can have flow on affects for other stages. Increasing the supply joining the marketplace has highlighted the need to focus on sitter onboarding as well as boosting demand to activate the new supply.