Furdy is a hypothetical mobile app created as part of Dribbble's Product Design Course in 2022. It addresses the problem faced by busy dog owners who struggle to find a reliable dog walker without the support of family and friends. The app offers intuitive features and tools to easily match dog owners with their preferred dog walker, following the UX fundamentals and product design process taught during the course. Please note that this project is purely hypothetical and was designed solely for the purpose of practicing and understanding UX fundamentals and the product design process.

Role & Duration

As a UX/UI Designer, my role involved understanding and defining the problem and target users and designing and testing solutions to address and mitigate the identified issues effectively. The project duration spanned a total of ten weeks, commencing in March 2022, in alignment with the course schedule. Subsequently, an additional four weeks were dedicated to conducting extensive research and implementing revisions to enhance the app's functionality and user experience in March 2023.

Problem

Busy dog owners face the challenge of finding reliable and affordable dog walkers who meet their specific requirements. This can result in spending a lot of time and effort searching for a suitable walker and sometimes even canceling plans because of the inability to find an ideal one. Therefore, there is a need for a user-friendly solution that streamlines the process of finding a trustworthy dog walker who is compatible with the user's needs and budget.

Goal

The goal of the project is to design a user-friendly app that simplifies the process of finding and booking appointments with reliable dog walkers for dog owners. The app incorporates several key features, including comprehensive background checks on walkers, real-time GPS tracking during walks, verified reviews and ratings from other dog owners, and round-the-clock customer support, among other functionalities. The aim is to provide a seamless and trustworthy platform that caters to the specific needs of dog owners seeking

Design Process 

Here are the steps of the design process I followed for this project.

Research & Empathize

Competitive Analysis

Wag! and Rover are the top two rated pet care service apps in the search results on the IOS and Android app stores. With the reviews in the app stores and a couple of articles of users sharing their thoughts after using both apps, I organized and listed the pro and cons of these two apps. 

Feature Analysis

I downloaded both Wag and Rover apps to identify and compare what features, flow, and systems they have in common and their differences. In addition, I also focus on the features that convey a sign of trust to the users.

Survey

To understand the users' dog walking habits and their criteria for choosing a walker to walk their dogs, I created and shared the dog owner survey on my Instagram.  In a week, 8 dog owners participated in the survey.  With all the responses, the most common criterion dog owners seek in a dog walker is reliability, which also becomes a pain point for them to take extra time to look for a dog walker. The questions and results are listed below.

• More than half of the participants choose to ask family/friends to walk their dog when they are not available. 

• 37.5% of the participants choose to cancel the plan, 25% prefer to try to find another service/walker, and 25% are unsure if someone/someplace they trust is unavailable.

• Half of the participants who have not tried a pet service app don't feel comfortable letting strangers enter their houses and walk their dogs.

• The most common criterion participants seek in a dog walker is reliability. The second common criteria are the walker's reputation/rating and the quality of professional care toward the dog.

User Persona

Having the user persona based on the survey and the background of a couple of participants gave me a better direction and idea of who I would be designing for. The user persona included the user's goal and frustration.  

Ideate

User Flow

After understanding the problem and user's need, creating a user flow helped me imagine the possibilities the users might consider and take from signing up to booking a walker.

Brainstorming

Based on the survey, most participants are looking for reliability in a dog walker. Therefore, I focused on how to build trust between the user and the walkers/business. Brainstorming around these questions allowed me to narrow down and list what feature would be ideal for the app. 

Sketches

With the support of the user flow and ideas from brainstorming, I sketched out the first idea of the wireframe for three flows:

• Signing up for an account

• Browse and book a walker

• View live tracking on a walk

Wireframe

Alongside the sketches, I designed each section in more detail to provide an overview of the structure, functionality, layout, information, and a UI design frame for a later stage.

Design & Testing

Implement the Style Guide

To convey the image of reliability, the color blue is chosen as the priory color because it's associated with trust, security, loyalty, and responsibility. In addition, I select yellow as the secondary color to provide a positive and energizing image and show an eye-catching contrast to the primary color, blue. I used Avenir Next as the primary font to deliver a clean, straightforward, and confident impression.  

Usability Testing

Two participants from the survey were able to participate in the usability testing. One was in person, and the other was over Zoom, each lasting about 30 minutes. 

The two main objectives of this test are:

• Observe if users can accomplish the task of booking a walk. What action will they talk if they are lost, and what causes the confusion?

• What features and areas of the app require to modify to improve user satisfaction, expectation, and performance?

After meeting with the participants, I revised a few areas and features on the app. The provided feedback reveal the difference between my understanding and what the participants experienced.

Final Design

Prototype

View the prototype on my website: https://www.opheliasun.com/furdy

Result

Although this is just a hypothetical project, I am grateful for the opportunity to start from scratch and enable users to test my prototype successfully.

Both participants were able to book a walker during the usability testing and shared valuable feedback. One participant expressed concerns about trusting a stranger to enter her home and walk their dog since they are unfamiliar with pet care service apps. She suggested additional safety measures beyond background checks, GPS tracking, verified owner reviews, and other supportive features I had already included in the app.

If I have the opportunity to continue this project, I will prioritize enhancing its security and reliability.

Feel free to leave any feedback and suggestions.

*Onboarding Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

Thanks to

Dribbble for creating this opportunity for me to learn this new topic and meet new people

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Jesse Showalter with all the great material, information, and tutorial videos

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Valerie Downs for her support, feedback, and contribution as a mentor :)