Fluffy Walker

Mobile app for booking dog walking services

Market research

Competitive analysis

User survey

Personas

Wireframes

Flow diagrams

High-fidelity UI

Prototype

Mini usability study

Accessibility evaluation

Where

Boston, Massachusetts

What

Native Mobile App (iOS)

Why

Portfolio Project

Role

Designer, Researcher

Market Research

The claim

The global pet walking market size was valued at USD 2.6 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7% from 2020 to 2027.

The problem

As society continues to increase their demand for dog walking services, there needs to be more reliable options available for dog walking services.

Competitive analysis

To gain a better understanding of the space I'm designing for I conducted a competitive audit on 3 dog walking apps - looking both at the booking experience and the negative app store comments to find patterns.

The good

All apps allow the users to schedule dog walks. They have other features that allow users to schedule pet sitting(Wag!, Rover)

The bad

Any cancellation of a walk will result in a fee even if it’s weeks away (Wag!) Users are forced to register before using the app (Barkly Pets) There is no way to see which walkers are verified in the app (Rover)

Problems from the comments

User survey

I conducted a quick survey among people who frequently use dog walking apps on Twitter.

What’s the most important factor you take into account choosing a dog walking app?

21 participants

Notable comments

Initial research shows

There is a growing need for an accessible and secure dog walking service with a verified booking process.

Personas

I created two personas based on two types of users of the app: The hustling college student and the busy mom

Time to start designing!

After I went through all my research data, it was time to sketch out the first flows and the initial low-fidelity wireframes.

Flow Diagram

To outline all the necessary functionality I created a simple flow diagram of the main tasks the user can do. One of the flows is shown below. Fail state flows were also created, but are not shown due to space constraints.

Low-fidelity wireframes

Once the flow diagram was established, I started creating the low fidelity wireframes of the main flows.

High-fidelity UI Design

Once the initial flow was complete, I started by creating a couple of the main screens of the app. I started by defining the fonts and colors.

Playful look & feel

The style was achieved by using a few graphic images of dog walks alongside keeping the feel and look of the app minimalistic

Font

Lato
Regular, Medium, Bold, Italic

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHh

Color palette

Accent, primary, secondary, tertiary, background

39 high-fidelity designs were created

Including two different navigation patterns (a tab bar and a hamburger menu) that could be used for A/B testing in further design stages.

High-fidelity prototype

I connected my high fidelity designs into a clickable prototype. That will allow me to test the app on a first group of users.

The prototype can be live-previewed at: [Figma link]

Prototype validation

I validated my prototype with 4 users. Each were given a subset of the prototype dedicated to the discover, playlists and song detail views. I wanted to be sure users understand that there are more songs within categories, and that each product also has a dedicated page.

This was tested in person, where I introduced the user to the app and asked them questions. The questions were dedicated to finding out whether the discover and playlists tabs were easy enough to understand.

High fidelity prototype validation image

Study results

50% of users (2 out of 4) were overwhelmed with the graphics on the song detail page. They quickly understood how to listen to a song however they felt over stimulated once viewing the song detail page.

Prototype Update concept

Because of time constraints, I wasn’t able to run a second usability study on the updated prototype. However, I have updated it by giving users the option to toggle the song detail view with a “swap button” located on the song detail page.

Updated swap button / action to simplify the experience

Project summary

During the project, I managed to evaluate the market, do a quick user survey on Twitter, perform a mini usability study, create a set of low fidelity wireframes, connect them into a prototype and build them out to high-fidelity, beautiful UI designs. In the last checkup round I also did an extensive QA audit focusing on consistency and color contrast with regards to accessibility.

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Let's share ideas & discuss ways to collaborate!

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