Pet health info lives everywhere, and nowhere.
Lost paper records, missed appointments and misinformation online make it hard for owners to make the right decision at the right time. Care gets delayed and owners feel anxious.
← All work
Case study 01 · April 2025 · Mobile app
Petigo
An AI-powered pet care assistant that turns scattered health records and anxious guesswork into one calm, trusted place.
The problem
The root cause wasn’t missing reminders.
Interviews with vets showed that missed reminders were the symptom. The root cause was the lack of a standard format for a pet’s health history, so the Digital Health Record became the priority.
A calm “right now” assistant.
Reduce cognitive load in anxious moments: one health record, smart reminders, an AI assistant and quick access to vets.
What 8 interviews revealed
To test my assumptions, I talked to pet owners and to vets, the other key people in pet care.
I ran 35–40 minute interviews, online and face to face, with 6 pet owners and 2 veterinarians. The target audience was tech-savvy pet owners aged 25–45. I also benchmarked four local and global pet-care apps: Me Pety, My Pet, Pet Care and Digi Tail.
6pet owners
2vets
35–40min interviews
4apps benchmarked
Benchmark. Existing apps mostly store data. Information isn’t filtered to the owner’s situation, and dashboards remind rather than guide.
Limitations. Eight interviews are a small, qualitative sample. They shaped the direction but don’t show how common each problem is.
- 01
The trust gap
Owners are overwhelmed by conflicting advice online. Filtering for accurate information increases anxiety.
- 02
Lack of expert guidance
New owners want professional advice even for small issues. Not reaching an expert triggers stress.
- 03
Emotional isolation
Managing care alone makes small emergencies feel like panic.
- 04
Cognitive load
Tracking vaccines, medication and appointments in a busy routine creates a constant fear of forgetting.
The journey, from panic to routine
Pelin, the persona built from the interviews, finds a kitten, searches online, visits a vet and finally settles into a routine. Each stage pointed to an opportunity.
Key decisions
Every screen answers a pain point from research.
Progressive onboarding
One question per screen. Breed, age and needs filter content from day one.
Yuki, the AI assistant
24/7 guidance with quick-reply chips: vet advice in bite-sized steps.
Digital health record
Vaccines and history in one card: the standard record vets asked for.
Find a vet
Topic, then vet, then time slot: booking designed to take under 3 taps.
How it evolved
Step 1 · Persona
Anxious Owner Pelin
A ceramic artist in Istanbul who unexpectedly rescues a kitten. She doesn’t need a complex dashboard; she needs a “right now” assistant.
Step 2 · User flow
Four paths from one dashboard
Personalised onboarding leads to a home dashboard with four branches: Smart Health Passport, Yuki, Find a Vet and Profile.
Step 3 · Wireframes
Structure before colour
Greyscale screens for onboarding, the health card, notes and vet booking, before any visual styling.
Step 4 · Style guide
A warm visual language
A Montserrat type scale, an orange primary palette with secondary accents, and illustrations created with Replit AI.
The prototype
Click through the real flows. It runs right here in the page.
What I’d do next
- 01
Usability sessions
Run moderated sessions on onboarding, the health record and vet booking, the three flows that carry the most anxiety.
- 02
Measure the booking flow
Vet booking is designed to take under 3 taps. That is a design target, to be measured in testing.
- 03
Faster data entry
The journey map points to voice or photo (OCR) logging to reduce manual entry. It isn’t designed yet.