Project Overview

The goal for this project was to design a mobile application that would make it easier for dog owners to safely connect with potential dog walkers. The main issues that the application was designed to solve for were establishing trust and convenience between dog owners and potential dog walkers. 

My Role

My role in the project was to design the user experience (problem statements, user/competitor research, user flows, user testing) and the user interface (moodboard, wireframes, visual library) for the mobile app. 

Understanding the User

Interviews

To start research for this project, I conducted two user interviews; one with a dog owner and one with a dog walker.

Pain Points from User Interviews

Pain Point #1: Establishing trust with the other person. This was the topic that was brought up the most from dog owners and dog walkers

Pain Point #2: Range of services. Owners are looking for walkers who can do more for their pet. Walkers look to provide additional services to increase income.

Pain Point #3: Reliability. This was a two way street between the owners and walkers as they stated that unreliability was one of the biggest problems they’ve had in the past. 

User Persona

Market Research

When conducting competitor research, I chose to review the apps Rover and Wag! Based on testing these apps, the main issues that users had were the similar problems that the interviews brought up. Trust and reliability were the main issues in the dog owner/dog walker relationship.

User Flow

In this user flow, the goal was to make the process of signing up for the app quicker and easier than the competition. 

Ideation, wire framing, prototyping

Moodboard

Wireframes

Screen Design #1

In my first designs of the screens, I wanted to incorporate more of the use of user profiles to establish a connection and trust. This was also the idea of the use of green in the app.

Screen Design #2

I still went with the color green but used it to highlight the CTAs on the screen while letting the profile images of the dog walkers provide the most color to the screens.

Prototyping and User Testing

The prototype is still in development based on the screens above. You can find the prototype being developed here

In the near future, there will be user tests conducted. These will test users on their ability to browse and contact a dog walker based on the above screens.

Takeaways and Next Steps

What I learned throughout this process is how important it is for the users to establish a real connection with other users, whether it is a potential dog walker or dog owner. Conducting the user and competitor research helped establish my goals for the designs to improve trust between users. 

The next step is to continue to test on users and make improvements to make the process easier to connect dog owners to dog walkers in the future.