Buddies mobile app
Making it easier for pet parents to take care of their furbabies.
Client
Blue Buffalo pet food
Project Type
Mobile app
Project Scope
Design concepting, voice and tone creation, content design, UX writing
Duration
November 2020-May 2022
Background
The pandemic severely limited a key marketing channel that Blue Buffalo was launching: In-store pet experts called “Pet Buffs” that pet parents could rely on for advice about pet foods, behaviors and training. In response to the Covid shutdown in 2020, Blue Buffalo connected with Accenture to help make a virtual version of the pet expert experience.
Problem
From August 2020 to May 2022, Accenture collaborated with Blue Buffalo stakeholders to concept, design, research, and develop the brand’s first mobile app from start to finish. The original project scope was to create a pet expert app similar to the Pet Buffs concept.
Goals
Build an fun, intuitive app to help pet parents manage their pets’ care while engaging an audience beyond Blue Buffalo customers.
Initial market research showed that the target audience had an appetite for a more robust pet app. The project scope was broadened to help Blue Buffalo reach a wider audience of pet parents.
Project Details
My Role
Lead Content Designer/UX Writer
The Team
UX Design Lead
Senior UX Designer
UX Design Associates (3)
Our team collaborated with the product, marketing, user research, development, and content teams made up of Accenture and Blue Buffalo employees, as well as our senior stakeholders at Blue Buffalo.
What I Did
I joined the project in November 2020 after initial market research was completed to define the audience and value propositions. As the only UX writer on the team, I wore a lot of hats, including:
Concepting, defining and documenting the unique Buddies voice and tone
Naming features and creating app-specific terminology
Messaging and copy for all features (Pet profiles, Shop, Connect, Ask a Pet Buff, Rewards, Notifications, etc.)
Collaborating on content design for wireframes and high-definition screens for development hand-off
Establishing content patterns and character counts for app features, error and success messages, toasts, and product description pages
Establishing and documenting a style guide and glossary of terms for consistency and eventual hand-off to the Blue Buffalo team
Reception and Impact
MVP launch in August 2021
Rated a 4.9/5 on Apple App Store (46,000 ratings)
Rated a 4.75/5 on Google Play (21,000 ratings)
Finalist for a V360 Award for Client Co-Innovation, Accenture’s internal annual awards
Buddies eventually became a fully-featured app with a live chat option for users to connect with pet experts, as well as pet profiles to help families keep track of their pets’ needs, a robust Blue Buffalo rewards program, community forums, a library of articles, Blue Buffalo shop, a pet meme generator, and more.
The Buddies Voice
Because this was a new app,
THE PROCESS
At the beginning of the project, we formed a small group of decision-makers from various teams, including our account lead, UX design lead, marketing lead, and the content director from Blue Buffalo.
Over the course of a two-week sprint, I led the voice and tone exercise by:
Conducting a competitive review and collecting V/T samples from retailers in the pet industry
Identifying 4 general V/T categories
Writing short sample copy to illustrate each V/T category (a greeting, banner/announcement card, and text notification)
Presenting the competitive research and V/T exercises to our internal team
The team quickly shortlisted two V/T directions. In our next design sprint, I pressure-tested the two options by writing and placing copy into wireframes for the Buddies home screen, pet profile, and an error message. After some discussion, the team settled on Tone 2 as the winner.
THE BUDDIES VOICE
The Buddies voice is friendly, informal and enthusiastic. It’s rooted in Blue Buffalo’s brand voice, so anyone familiar with Blue Buffalo should feel right at home.
But pets are, after all, fun. This is where the Buddies voice becomes distinct from the traditional Blue Buffalo brand. As we worked through developing the Buddies experience, I identified moments where we could showcase the brand’s lighter side, generally in announcements and notifications, empty states, error messages, and wizard flows. The goal was to favor simple, straightforward copy to help users achieve their goals, with a healthy dose of pet puns where it made sense.
Case Study Spotlight: Pet Profiles and Timelines
BUSINESS
USER
The core of the Buddies experience is to help pet parents manage their pet’s health and lifestyle. In order to set up a pet profile, pet parents are guided through a series of wizard flows where they answer basic questions about their pet’s health, diet, and vaccinations. Answers are then populated into their pet’s profile, where they can be edited and updated as needed.
Timelines are where pet parents can add entries and updates in a variety of categories, from notable milestones to medications, training updates, photos, memes and more. It’s a digital record developed for and devoted to our furry friends that can be viewed by everyone in a user’s Buddies Family.