Design brief

The project was to create a design for a mobile app that will connect dog owners and dog walkers. This should be an easy to use app for dog owners to find trustworthy sitters or walkers for their dogs when they need.?

The Challenge

Dog owners love and care for their dogs like they are part of their family. Some of the time due to their busy schedule they need help from some one to care for their dogs. This could be to take them for a walk, care for it during the day, take them for vet appointments etc. Dog owners need some one whom they can trust to take care of their dogs with the same love and attention as themselves.

My Role

As the Product Designer and UX/UI expert on the project, I was responsible for driving the UX/UI development methodology end-to-end.

I conducted user research, drew insights from it to develop the persona and use it to create the different stages of the design which was then tested via a prototype to get user feedback.

The Process

User Research

Before beginning the design work I interviewed 3 friends and neighbours who are dog owners. Each of them had their own needs when they seek help from dog walking services. In summary the key findings from my research are;

• Dog owners need trustworthy walkers in their neighbourhood

• Dog owners preferred walkers who have completed background checks

• They need to quickly find walkers based on availability

Market Research

I researched some of the top apps already available in the market. This helped me to understand what features are provided by other apps and what features are missing. The findings from my market research are shown below.?

Persona

Based on my findings from the user and market research, I developed the persona of Linda. She is a loving dog owner who needs help occasionally to care for her dog.

User flow

The user flow was developed to address the particular problem of finding trustworthy walkers. After onboarding and user sign up, the user selects the service they are looking for and immediately a list of available dog walkers based on their rating and certified/verified status are listed.

Low-fi Sketches

Include multiple images here, showing 1st and 2nd rounds of iterations. Explain what you changed and why.

The next step was to create the low fidelity sketches. I used FigJam to create the sketches for the different screens of my app.

Wireframes

Include multiple images here, showing 1st and 2nd rounds of iterations. Explain what you changed and why.

Mid fidelity wireframes were developed in Figma. My initial design included multiple onboarding pages. The user sign up page also was very detailed. After reviewing I simplified the onboarding and user signup pages so that it is not too complex for the users.

Visual Designs

To start the visual design process I created a mood board and style guide. I chose lively and bright colours for the colour theme. All the components to be used such as buttons, input fields and icons were also represented in the style guide. For applicable components such as buttons and bottom bar I used variants which were then reused in different pages. The design of the Home and Profile Details included cards and input fields designed using the auto-layout features of Figma.

Prototype + test

The prototype was tested with a user for feedback. The tester found the select date label on the profile page to be confusing. The labels for Select Date and Timings was changed to be more reflective of their purpose. The profile page was originally in 3 different pages. This was changed to have Summary, Reviews and Services as three sections within the same page.

Click here for the Figma prototype

Outcome

This project taught me several new concepts in product design using Figma. I was able to use the seven concepts of product design in creating this mobile app design. This will help me to create engaging visual designs for mobile application products.?

Thank you for reading through. Welcome your feedback.