Dogify - Dog Walking App
The Dogify app was created for dog owners to find trustworthy walkers in a quick and easy way.
Problem Statement
Dog owners sometimes need help caring for and walking their dogs. We need to create a service to connect them with dog walkers. Main focus is on how we can help dog owners trust their dogs are in safe hands.
Solutions
🔸 Users can easily and seamlessly use the application
🔸 Dog walker’s profile is detailed enough, info is displayed in organised and easy way to perceive
🔸 I created many trust indicators like: live tracking during the walk, verified accounts, earned badges for successfully completing specific experience, reviews, links to social profiles, photo/video portfolio, etc.
1. User Research
For the User research I used such tools:
🔸 Maze (for user Survey and Analytics)
🔸 Publicly available statistics
96% of people participated in our research haven’t used any dog walking apps before.
Most important aspects that influence our users decisions:
🔸 Trust
🔸 Professionalism
🔸 Previous experience of walkers
🔸 App’s ease of use
🔸 Communication
🔸 Reliability
2. Competitive analysis
By analysing our significant competitors, Rover and Wag, I found that while both provided enormous amounts of information for dog owners - it was too much and not really focused on being simplistic for the dog owners and the dog walkers.
Also people want to see reviews, training, achievements, prior experience, and other qualifications to determine if the dog walker was trustworthy and competent.
3. Persona
Based on the previous research results I formed a general user persona that reflects the app’s users. It helped me to define expectations, concerns and motivations of our target users.
4. User Flow
Before jumping right into designing the screens I prepared user flow of the app. This approach allowed me to map how our users will move through the app and make a list of the screens that I needed to design.
5. Wireframes
So we have some strategy and flow which shows the user journey from point A to point B. Now it’s time to visualise the tasks, features and organise those components in the way that help the user accomplish their goal.
6. Visual Design
In order to define the right mood of our designs, I created a moodboard, that reflected emotions associated with the product. This way I could effectively share ideas with the team and make sure that I’m going to the right direction.
My goal was to make the application bright, soft and friendly, and at the same time to keep it professional.
To find the colour palette that fits perfectly we needed to run few iterations. Eventually I found a combination that perfectly reflects product’s values and provokes an emotional response that I wanted.
The core idea was to make Dogify sleek and simple, no unnecessary buttons, no extra flair. Just a streamlined interface that guides the users to their goals. Dogify’s bright and fun color palette gives it casual look to make sure platform looks modern and enjoyable.
Design System
To bring consistency to our product design, enable cross-functional collaboration, increase the speed and scalability of design - we created a Design System, which includes Typography, Colour Styles, Icons, Illustrations, components, etc.
7. Prototype & Testing
We know how our product will look and work, now it’s time to receive external feedback. For Usability testing I approached a Useberry tool. Following the link you’ll find how exactly we tested our users and how it worked: https://app.useberry.com/t/TFL4VOPMHCfJ/
Usability testing allowed me to define a few weak spots of our application and to fix it. I was able to see in real time and through recordings what decisions took our users more time, what confusions they faced. Here are some of them:
🔸Missing logo
🔸User was confused how application will know his/her location and match with dog walkers. We added pop up iOS dialog for location permission
🔸First screen of the app was not matching rest of the splash screens, that’s why we separated it and rebuild it as a start page.
Key Learnings
Overall it was a great experience. After 2,5 months of an exciting and insightful journey with Dribbble team, product team mates and mentor, I’m curious to continue the journey, dive deeper into Product Design and take new projects & challenges.
Thank you! ❤️
