What’s the problem? Finding a dog walker you can trust.

Dog owners want to find someone reliable and trustworthy to take care of their dog when they’re unable to. Dog walking services allow owners to know their dogs are getting the right exercise and stimulation, therefore taking this weight off their shoulders.

However in my user research, the #1 issue was finding a dog walker people can trust. The next issues that arose were scheduling and breed knowledge/experience. The user research gave key insights into what actual users need, issues they are experiencing, and how I can solve those problems.

Who are we designing for?

3x semi-structured interviews were conducted in-person with people who have at least 1 dog.

Based on the user research a key persona were created to represent our dog owners - Alex. Alex has their own goals, motivations, and frustrations to allow Paws to ease our users’ tensions and pain points.

The path to achieving the user’s goals

The main user flow was created with the goal of finding Alex a trustworthy dog walker with specific dog experience.

I kept the initial onboarding process as simple as possible, with only a few steps before being able to see the dog walker options.

During my research, I noticed that competitors often forced users to sign up without allowing browsing. Browsing is important for building trust and as such I made sure that sign ups were only needed to move forward to the booking stage.

Building the design

Below are some examples from the low to hi-fidelity wireframes, with the user flow and personas in mind.

As I was designing the wireframes, I ensured that I included a number of trust signals on the search page that would help the owners to trust the walkers (such as star ratings, verification and breed experience).

Bringing the design to life

I built on the wireframes and for the visual designs, I chose an earthy colour palette to represent adventure and the outdoors. The overall design is kept clean and minimal to avoid overload. It was also important to me to ensure the app was accessible for all users, so I appropriately sized the texts with adequate contrast.

To ensure scalability I also created a component library, making it simple for further iterations.

Prototyping and testing our solutions

I built a prototype of the app through Figma and tested this with a number of users to gather feedback.

The app was well received in its visual design; however a core problem was identified - you couldn’t see the walkers’ availability before booking. Availability was a key issue walkers had highlighted in my user research and this had been missed - it illustrated to me how important it is to keep all the previous deliverables front of mind as you move through the design process.

A link to my prototype can be found here.

Outcomes and key takeaways

Overall Paws bridged the gap between dog owners and dog walkers, allowing owners to trust the people that will be looking after their dogs.

This was my first experience of end-to-end product design and I learnt so much, from the importance of research to the development of a sound user flow.

For me, the next steps are to develop my UX skills as this is the area of product design that I am most passionate about.