DUGGY

This case study will show the process of designing a simple dog walking app from start to finish.

The problem

Dog owners sometimes need help caring for and walking their dogs. Create a service to connect dog owners with dog walkers. Consider how we can help dog owners trust their dogs are in safe hands.

The user

Richard is a busy professional that cares about quickly finding a dog walker that he can trust. He has a busy schedule that changes often.

The user profile informed the structural design and branding of the app so that Richard can achieve his goals efficiently.

User flow and wireframes

Once the user was defined, I moved on to creating some basic user flow models that detail the journey that our user would go on. This was split into two specific functions; Onboarding and Booking for clarity.

From there it was time to start designing the structure of the app using basic low-fidelity wireframes.

Design variations

As part of the visual design process I came up with multiple options for branding.

I iterated to version 3 as I felt that a mixture of high quality photography and clean design for the main screens presented a more trustworthy brand. The colour profile is simple with an off white, strong primary blue and black being the main palette.

Creating design system components

Having a small library of components that can be reused across the app makes the composition and iteration process much more efficient.

With this in mind, I designed a simple design system that used an 8 pixel grid for all measurements, sizes and spacing.

The onboarding flow

As the user has downloaded the app and has shown high intent, I went straight to capturing information about their location and their dog for the beginning of the onboarding flow.

On the third screen we collect information about the user so that we can create the account. In future versions I would also like to allow the user to sign up using Google or Apple accounts.

Searching for a dog walker

A key feature in the app, I wanted searching to be simple and fast for our busy professionals.

Autocompleting the search based on the user's location settings and displaying key information on cards means that a user can quickly find a walker that meets their standards.

Dog walker profiles

The profile gives the dog walker the ability to provide more information about their skills, what they offer and show off their personality with images.

From a user's perspective, the profile needed to feel clear and fluid so they can make their decision fast. This meant keeping the amount of information provided to users at a minimum and highlighting the call to actions.

Messaging and booking

The final part of the application design was to provide a clean, simple and easy way for the user to message a dog walker to ask questions and then request to book the dog walker.

DUGGY next steps and final thoughts

The next steps would be to ship the app to a small group of users that have a need for the product and listen to their feedback. From there I would iterate based on their likes, dislikes and sticking points that they face in the app.

During this project it was easy to see how much the specific user and their goals impacted the design of the application aesthetically and functionally.