Designing a new subscription management app for Butternut Box that allows users to manage food subscription for their dogs
Butternut box is a company that makes fresh high quality wet dog food and delivers boxes at regular intervals in a subscription. Users could select their delivery frequency, meals and calories on the website.
My role was to design a new mobile app to let dog owners manage their subscription.
My role
Concepting
Information architecture
User Experience
In app messaging strategy
Team 2 des, 2 devs
Client
Butternut Box
Duration
6 months
Project highlights
100,000+
downloads on the Google Play Store
4.4
star rating on the App Store
01.
Project Background
Butternut had a web experience that allowed users to manage their subscriptions, their dog’s plans, recipes and details. The web experience however had a few problems and needed improvement.
The goal of this project was to bring the Butternut experience to a mobile app while fixing the website’s issues.
02.
The most important
challenges
01.
Transactional, in-cohesive, feature centric experience with a heavy emphasis on features rather than the dog
Butternut had a great set of features, but the experience was fragemented and centred around providing a bunch of features rather than providing a place to take care of their dogs needs.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How can we move the butternut experience from a transactional experience to a meaningful one aligning it with its brand values?
02.
Contradiction between Butternut’s operational model and user’s mental resulted in confusion and frustration.
Users sometimes couldn’t find the recipes they wanted to change because they would expect them to be under Plan Management, but they weren’t. This resulted in confusion and being unable to find things.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How might we simplify the experience to align user’s thinking with the provided brand experience?
03.
Puppy owners are stressed as their pups are growing quickly and they’re unsure how much food to feed their pups.
Puppy owners were especially stressed, not knowing how much food to feed their pups, when to increase food quantity, etc. As a brand that projected caring values, the Butternut digital experience was lacking.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How might we put puppy owners at ease without overwhelming them and provide a truly helpful Butternut experience?
03.
Solution
Making the dog the centre of the experience, and bringing together features into a cohesive dog centric experience.
Dog over features
Users don’t compartmentalise dogs in their head, they think about the dog and all of the dog’s needs. We wanted the experience to cater to this, one page for all of your dog’s needs, similar to a fitness app that puts the user at the centre and not the individual features.
Before
Fragmented feature centric experience broken down into multiple tabs
After
Home tab, the place for all of your dog’s needs, centering your experience around your dog
04.
Aligning Butternut’s operational model
with users’ mental model for greater clarity
The problem.
Disconnect between operational and mental models
There was a disconnect between Butternut’s operational model and users’ mental model. Butternut saw the recipes as separate from the plan itself, while users expected the entire box, including recipes, to be part of the plan. This led to confusion because users looked for recipe changes under "Plan Management," while the recipes were presented under “Recipe Management”. Finding things users wanted became difficult and led to frustration.
While operationally these were different features, visually and hierarchically we presented them together to make them seem like the “Plan”, thus aligning with users’ understanding of what constitutes a plan.
05.
The new dog-centric
information architecture
At the heart of the UX approach was simplifying the information architecture to reflect how users naturally think about their dog, moving away from an operationally driven structure.
06.
Thoughtful, caring and comforting communication
for a uniquely Butternut experience
Informing puppy owners what’s coming to manage their stress
Puppy owners were provided with periodic notifications on the growth of their pups and the resulting new calorie requirements.
Thoughtfully keeping things fresh for dogs if recipes haven’t been changed
Occasional notifications to keep things fresh for the dogs, in line with Butternut’s brand values of being thoughtful and caring.
Informing users the effects of the daily serving size they choose for their dogs
Users can customise the daily serving size, but if Butternut feels that this does not match the calories the dog requires, the user will be provided with immediate feedback.
Butternut’s brand is warm, comforting, and caring. We aimed to anticipate users’ concerns and ease their stress by adding thoughtful, reassuring communication that shows Butternut is there to support them.
07.
Project outcome
100,000+
downloads on the Google Play Store
4.4
star rating on the App Store
Designing a new subscription management app for Butternut Box that allows users to manage food subscription for their dogs
Butternut box is a company that makes fresh high quality wet dog food and delivers boxes at regular intervals in a subscription. Users could select their delivery frequency, meals and calories on the website.
My role was to design a new mobile app to let dog owners manage their subscription.
My role
Concepting
Information architecture
User Experience
In app messaging strategy
Team 2 des, 2 devs
Client
Butternut Box
Duration
6 months
Project highlights
100,000+
downloads on the Google Play Store
4.4
star rating on the App Store
01.
Project Background
Butternut had a web experience that allowed users to manage their subscriptions, their dog’s plans, recipes and details. The web experience however had a few problems and needed improvement.
The goal of this project was to bring the Butternut experience to a mobile app while fixing the website’s issues.
02.
The most important
challenges
01.
Transactional, in-cohesive, feature centric experience with a heavy emphasis on features rather than the dog
Butternut had a great set of features, but the experience was fragemented and centred around providing a bunch of features rather than providing a place to take care of their dogs needs.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How can we move the butternut experience from a transactional experience to a meaningful one aligning it with its brand values?
02.
Contradiction between Butternut’s operational model and user’s mental resulted in confusion and frustration.
Users sometimes couldn’t find the recipes they wanted to change because they would expect them to be under Plan Management, but they weren’t. This resulted in confusion and being unable to find things.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How might we simplify the experience to align user’s thinking with the provided brand experience?
03.
Puppy owners are stressed as their pups are growing quickly and they’re unsure how much food to feed their pups.
Puppy owners were especially stressed, not knowing how much food to feed their pups, when to increase food quantity, etc. As a brand that projected caring values, the Butternut digital experience was lacking.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How might we put puppy owners at ease without overwhelming them and provide a truly helpful Butternut experience?
03.
Solution
Making the dog the centre of the experience, and bringing together features into a cohesive dog centric experience.
Dog over features
Users don’t compartmentalise dogs in their head, they think about the dog and all of the dog’s needs. We wanted the experience to cater to this, one page for all of your dog’s needs, similar to a fitness app that puts the user at the centre and not the individual features.
Before
Fragmented feature centric experience broken down into multiple tabs
After
Home tab, the place for all of your dog’s needs, centering your experience around your dog
04.
Aligning Butternut’s operational model
with users’ mental model for greater clarity
The problem.
Disconnect between operational and mental models
There was a disconnect between Butternut’s operational model and users’ mental model. Butternut saw the recipes as separate from the plan itself, while users expected the entire box, including recipes, to be part of the plan. This led to confusion because users looked for recipe changes under "Plan Management," while the recipes were presented under “Recipe Management”. Finding things users wanted became difficult and led to frustration.
While operationally these were different features, visually and hierarchically we presented them together to make them seem like the “Plan”, thus aligning with users’ understanding of what constitutes a plan.
05.
The new dog-centric
information architecture
At the heart of the UX approach was simplifying the information architecture to reflect how users naturally think about their dog, moving away from an operationally driven structure.
06.
Thoughtful, caring and comforting communication for a uniquely Butternut experience
Informing puppy owners what’s coming to manage their stress
Puppy owners were provided with periodic notifications on the growth of their pups and the resulting new calorie requirements.
Thoughtfully keeping things fresh for dogs if recipes haven’t been changed
Occasional notifications to keep things fresh for the dogs, in line with Butternut’s brand values of being thoughtful and caring.
Informing users the effects of the daily serving size they choose for their dogs
Users can customise the daily serving size, but if Butternut feels that this does not match the calories the dog requires, the user will be provided with immediate feedback.
Butternut’s brand is warm, comforting, and caring. We aimed to anticipate users’ concerns and ease their stress by adding thoughtful, reassuring communication that shows Butternut is there to support them.
07.
Project outcome
100,000+
downloads on the Google Play Store
4.4
star rating on the App Store
My role
Concepting
Information architecture
User Experience
In app messaging strategy
Team 2 des, 2 devs
Client
Butternut Box
Duration
6 months
Designing a new subscription management app for Butternut Box that allows users to manage food subscription for their dogs
Butternut box is a company that makes fresh high quality wet dog food and delivers boxes at regular intervals in a subscription. Users could select their delivery frequency, meals and calories on the website.
My role was to design a new mobile app to let dog owners manage their subscription.
Project highlights
100,000+
downloads on the Google Play Store
4.4
star rating on the App Store
01.
Project Background
Butternut had a web experience that allowed users to manage their subscriptions, their dog’s plans, recipes and details. The web experience however had a few problems and needed improvement.
The goal of this project was to bring the Butternut experience to a mobile app while fixing the website’s issues.
02.
The most important
challenges
01.
Transactional, in-cohesive, feature centric experience with a heavy emphasis on features rather than the dog
Butternut had a great set of features, but the experience was fragemented and centred around providing a bunch of features rather than providing a place to take care of their dogs needs.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How can we move the butternut experience from a transactional experience to a meaningful one aligning it with its brand values?
02.
Contradiction between Butternut’s operational model and user’s mental resulted in confusion and frustration.
Users sometimes couldn’t find the recipes they wanted to change because they would expect them to be under Plan Management, but they weren’t. This resulted in confusion and being unable to find things.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How might we simplify the experience to align user’s thinking with the provided brand experience?
03.
Puppy owners are stressed as their pups are growing quickly and they’re unsure how much food to feed their pups.
Puppy owners were especially stressed, not knowing how much food to feed their pups, when to increase food quantity, etc. As a brand that projected caring values, the Butternut digital experience was lacking.
REFRAMED CHALLENGE
How might we put puppy owners at ease without overwhelming them and provide a truly helpful Butternut experience?
03.
Solution
Making the dog the centre of the experience, and bringing together features into a cohesive dog centric experience.
Dog over features
Users don’t compartmentalise dogs in their head, they think about the dog and all of the dog’s needs. We wanted the experience to cater to this, one page for all of your dog’s needs, similar to a fitness app that puts the user at the centre and not the individual features.
Before
Fragmented feature centric experience broken down into multiple tabs
After
Home tab, the place for all of your dog’s needs, centering your experience around your dog
04.
Aligning Butternut’s operational model
with users’ mental model for greater clarity
The problem.
Disconnect between operational and mental models
There was a disconnect between Butternut’s operational model and users’ mental model. Butternut saw the recipes as separate from the plan itself, while users expected the entire box, including recipes, to be part of the plan. This led to confusion because users looked for recipe changes under "Plan Management," while the recipes were presented under “Recipe Management”. Finding things users wanted became difficult and led to frustration.
While operationally these were different features, visually and hierarchically we presented them together to make them seem like the “Plan”, thus aligning with users’ understanding of what constitutes a plan.
05.
The new dog-centric
information architecture
At the heart of the UX approach was simplifying the information architecture to reflect how users naturally think about their dog, moving away from an operationally driven structure.
06.
Thoughtful, caring and comforting communication
for a uniquely Butternut experience
Informing puppy owners what’s coming to manage their stress
Puppy owners were provided with periodic notifications on the growth of their pups and the resulting new calorie requirements.
Thoughtfully keeping things fresh for dogs if recipes haven’t been changed
Occasional notifications to keep things fresh for the dogs, in line with Butternut’s brand values of being thoughtful and caring.
Informing users the effects of the daily serving size they choose for their dogs
Users can customise the daily serving size, but if Butternut feels that this does not match the calories the dog requires, the user will be provided with immediate feedback.
Butternut’s brand is warm, comforting, and caring. We aimed to anticipate users’ concerns and ease their stress by adding thoughtful, reassuring communication that shows Butternut is there to support them.
07.
Project outcome
100,000+
downloads on the Google Play Store
4.4
star rating on the App Store