UX for Vet Burnout Relief

Pawpal was my capstone project for the UX Design Diploma at BrainStation. Over ten weeks, I explored an indirect route to a serious problem: could better-informed pet owners reduce empathy fatigue among veterinarians? The result was a mobile app that meets owners before they even adopt.

The Problem

Pet ownership jumped during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many new owners didn't know much about preventative care. Combined with a shortage of vets in British Columbia, that put more pressure on clinics and added to empathy fatigue among vets.

Interviews with pet owners and vets agreed on one thing: owners needed reliable information, and they needed it earlier than anyone was giving it to them.

Research & Insights

Interviews and desk research showed the gap opened early. Many owners felt unsupported and uninformed from the start, long before their first vet visit.

This led me to ask: "How might we better equip pet owners with the knowledge they need to care effectively for their pets?"

My hypothesis: providing pet owners with a tool to increase awareness and improve communication with veterinarians would reduce empathy fatigue among vets. A ten-week capstone had no way to measure vet burnout, so that part stayed a hypothesis. What I could test was the step before it: whether owners could find the information they needed and arrive at appointments better prepared. That's what the testing below focused on.

I built personas and experience maps from the interviews.

User persona, pet owner

Experience map

Design Strategy

The flow had one job: meet a worried owner with a clear next step. Everything in it traces back to something an owner said in research.

User flow diagram

Sketching & Early Concepts

Before prototyping digitally, I sketched the structure and interactions, borrowing patterns from health, education, and pet care apps.

Early sketches and concept exploration

Prototyping & Testing

From the sketches I moved to low-fidelity prototypes.

Low-fidelity prototype screens

In early tests, people struggled to find information about pet ailments, so I simplified how the app surfaces it.

Refined prototype, ailment search

The next round showed people wanted to book appointments and look back at past ones. I used a prioritisation matrix to decide what to build first, then reworked the scheduling and history screens.

Prioritisation matrix and feature refinement

Final Product & Brand

Once the product was settled, I built a brand that would feel calm to a worried owner.

Final product screens

Wordmark. I hand-drew the Pawpal logo so it would feel personal rather than clinical.

Pawpal wordmark

Colours & Typography. Soft, complementary colours and plain, readable type.

Colour palette and typography system

Accessibility. Colours meet AA contrast, and primary actions meet AAA.

Accessibility testing results

Interactive Prototype. In the final prototype, owners can search common pet ailments, see their pet's appointment history, change upcoming appointments, and get care tips.

Final interactive prototype screens

Expanding the Ecosystem

I also designed a responsive marketing site for desktop and mobile to introduce the app.

Marketing website, mobile

Marketing website, desktop

I also prototyped an interface for veterinarians, where notes they entered would sync to the owner's app. The idea was that vets would get fewer repeat questions during visits.

Veterinarian interface

Key Learnings

Pawpal taught me how to design for a problem where the person you're helping and the person you're trying to relieve are different people. The owner gets the app; the vet gets the benefit. Designing for both without the product splitting in two was the hardest part, and the vet notes interface was where it came together.