Dog owners sometimes need help caring for and walking their dogs. Pawz is a mobile app-based service that connects dog owners with dog walkers.

Problem statement

The focus of this project was on the dog owners: how they find and connect with dog walkers.

Project goal

The goal of the project was to design an experience for dog owners to connect with walkers and help owners feel confident and be more decisive by providing them with user reviews, photos and ratings of the walkers.

Pain points

• Finding a trusted and reliable walker

• Finding a walker within their budget

• Finding a walker at a desired time

• Finding a walker skilled with their type of dog

Project role

My role in this project was product design. It included:

• User and market research

• Design and prototyping

• Usability testing

User research

I conducted some one-on-one user interviews with 2 potential dog owners. My goal was to find out if they would be open to using a walking service and if so, what they would like to see in that service.

The second type of research was from online documented research, where designers who have undertaken similar projects have shared their insights.

Research findings

Market research

Competitor analysis was focused on the 2 major apps: Rover and Wag.

Research findings

From the perspective of the user, there is a need to be met in terms of the demand as well as filling in the gaps left by our competitors.

From the perspective of the business, there is potential financial gain to be made. If Pawz can provide a reliable quality service, then it can get a good slice of this market value share.

User persona

Kate is our user. Our goal is to meet her needs and see what good we can borrow and apply from the research we did as well as eliminate the pain points.

User flow

Onboarding

Kate needs a fast process so we allow her to sign up with whatever method she’s most comfortable with either email or social sign up.

Finding a walker

Kate can choose some pre-defined options to be more specific about the kind of walker she’s looking for such as date and time, location and dog info. The predefined options makes it faster for Kate so she doesn’t spend much time thinking about what she needs.

Wireframes

The user flow was then translated to the app. On this step, I tested it out on an iPhone via Figma Mirror to see if the layout worked well. Were the buttons too small, too close, was the text reasonable in size? All that was handled in this step.

Brand style

With the layout set, finding a brand voice was up next. This involved finding the typefaces and colors that would represent the brand as reliable, trustworthy, warm and authoritative.

For the colors, yellow and black were the main choices while blue and white complemented them.

For the typefaces, I settled on Fira Sans and Inter. Fira Sans has a beautiful subtle stylistic look while Inter is clean and maintains legibility the smaller the text gets.

High fidelity screens

Colors and typeface selection done, I moved to creating a style guide. It consisted of the typography and colors, effects for various elements and components.The end result:

Usability testing

The usability testing was done both in person and remote on Figma Mirror and using the Figma prototype link respectively.

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

The takeaway

This project was a brief given in the Dribbble Product Design Course and it was a challenging and exciting one to work on since it was my first time to tackle the pet space at length.

Keep things simple

I learned the value of keeping things simple. A navigation doesn’t need fluff, it needs to be clear and concise so users can quickly find what they are looking for.

The value of usability testing

Another takeaway is the value of usability testing. What might look obvious to you might not be so to other people and the only way to find that out is through testing and asking for genuine unbiased feedback.

Embrace the process

Lastly, a product will most likely go through several iterations even before developer handoff so brace yourself for the ride and embrace the process. As for the handoff, clearly labelling things and keeping the developer in the loop throughout the process is important in ensuring a smooth transition and product success.

Up next

The next step I would take is building out the walker side of things. How a dog walker would manage requests and market their services on the app.