I interviewed a total of 5 participants who had a least one dog/cat, had access to a local vet, and scheduled appointments at least two times a year. Moderated questions were open-ended about their overall online experience with the local vet clinic. The topics of choice included scheduling online appointments, ease of communication with the staff, access to quick notification pet records and transparency about vet bills. It was interesting to note that all but one participant had attempted to schedule an appointment with their pet online. This was because either the vet website didn’t offer it or lacked valuable data input for the users. If four out of five users weren’t interacting with their local vet from an online presence to schedule appointments, they might not be using additional features of the website. From further research, users did complain about the lack of communication that was available with the staff and transparency about the vet bills, even when calling the office. Also, many users were discouraged about forgetting upcoming appointments or to even schedule them. Most users just had paper copies, which from time to time, they would misplace.

 

This quickly became apparent, from user perspective, that gapped opportunities to bridge an improved online experience with the users and the staff at these local vet clinic was necessary. Consistent user pain points were of the following: an overall emotional online disconnection, lack of transparency, poor data input or no ability to schedule appointments, lack of communication with the staff, and poor visual and website branding.

 

My assumptions indicated that most users would schedule appointments online, given how often we use the internet for other tasks in our daily lives, but that certainly was not the case.

 

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