Dog Wlkr is an app that easily connects dog owners with dog walkers to book a walk or house sit a pet. 

My Role: Product Design, User Research, Market Research, User Flows, Wireframes, Visual Design, Prototyping 

Time: 6 Weeks 

Tools: Figma 

Type: This project was an assignment that was part of the Dribbble Product Design Course

The Challenge

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

Visual Designs

The Dog Wlkr app screens were kept to a light, fresh, and minimal design but with added elements of animal illustrations.

User Research

I conducted the interviews in person with dog owners. My research revealed that many dog owners struggle to find trustworthy and affordable dog walkers. Several owners had dogs with anxiety or minor behavior issues and wanted an understanding dog walker.

I asked questions about:

• Do you ever ask friends or use a service for dog walking or pet sitting? Why? How often?

• What do you like about the service? What do you dislike?

• Are there any services or features missing?

• What are the most important things you look for in a dog walker?

• Would you use a dog walking service?

Market Research

Market research indicated that Rover and Wag were the two primary pet sitting apps on the market that offered similar services. Both products had multiple features and lots of detailed information for the dog walker to gain a trust factor. I focused on opportunities to offer something different to the market:

• Offer 2 clear service options

• Search options before requiring customers to signup for an account

• Get to search results fast

• Non-cluttered dog walker profile viewing while still building trust with the dog owner

User Flow & Personas

I wanted to make the user flow as simple as possible and get the dog owner to the results as fast as possible with minimal screens and with collecting only the minimum required details. The rationale is to get the owners to the results screen as fast as possible and show them the trusted dog walker matches. Once trust is established by viewing the dog walker's experience, skills, and badges, the dog owner proceeds to account signup.

Wireframes

The first wireframe iteration has 9 initial screens. The screens included:

• Onboarding

• Service options

• Pet details

• Location details

• Search results

• Profile detail

• Account signup

• Chat

• Book service

In the second iteration, I saw an opportunity to combine the onboarding screen and service options.

Prototype

The prototype walks the user through the process of booking a dog walk. Usability tests showed that more screens features should be built out for a complete testing review (filter, date, time, etc.)

Key Takeaways

Overall I am happy with my results during this Dribbble class assignment and completing the challenge of creating a service that connects dogs with dog walkers. This project really taught me how essential good user research, feedback, and testing influence the design process and iterations. My next steps would be to build out user flows and screen designs for the dog walker.