Design Thinking Process

I relied on the cyclical UX design process to guide my efforts on producing this app:

Problem Definition

Research and group brainstorming sessions helped to clarify the user, their pain points, and project objectives.

User Research

After conducting multiple user interviews I learned that dog owners want to make sure service providers are aware of the dog’s unique needs like puppy training or social interaction with other dogs. Users expressed frustration with finding people that can be available at a certain time and concern over strangers being around their pets or in their home. Here's some quotes:

I found a sitter through the app, but now I just hire her directly and don’t use the app anymore.

— Anonymous dog walking app user

I’m more comfortable with having someone I know come to my house versus dropping her off at some one else [stranger].

— Anonymous dog owner‍

Lucy [dog] is a bitch. She doesn’t get along. She would get into a fight.

— Anonymous dog owner

Market Research

An audit of existing apps helped to reveal some initial findings. I compared some of the screens for similarities and differences. I read strong and weak testimonials to deepen my understanding of users’ experiences.

• Service providers need an app to run their business as much as the people who are searching for pet services.
• Users like seeing features where they get updates regarding their pet’s location and activities.
• Unhappy user experiences seem to come from a lack of technical support and customer service.

User Persona

The User Persona is a fusion of the individuals interviewed and market research. Meet Chet, a 28 year old sales professional. He needs to hire professionals in a short amount of time to watch his dog while he is traveling.

User Flows

My user flow started with a focus on meeting the base requirements for booking an appointment. While the flow looks complicated it was simply organizing and order of operations. I was able to reduce the number of screens in after some work on wireframes and in testing.

This user flow was pretty complicated so I did what I could to simplify. While the revised diagram itself is similar—it uses less screens to get the user to their goal.

Wireframes

Wireframes were used to sketch out ideas for the onboarding and appointment booking flows. These are just a few of the wireframes showing the log in screen, home screen, search results, and user profile screens.

For the next round of wireframes I simply built up and refined ideas from the previous ones. The biggest differences were detailing what kind of content was in the cards, adding menu navigation, and leaning into a stronger visual hierarchy.

User Testing

Iterations and Visual Design

The visual design came together over a series of iterations. Building a prototype and testing it impacted some of the choices I made.

These three iterations of the home screen shows how the visual design became refined over time. Decisions were reduced to give the user a stronger interaction point. Less colors meant more impact for the interactive elements.

Final Design

Onboarding Flow

Here's a recording of how the user would create an account followed by an explanation of the different screens.‍

Booking Flow

Here's a recording of how the user would would book a dog walking service followed by an explanation of the different screens.

App Demo

It was user testing that revealed the home page was too cluttered and needed a stronger focal point to direct interaction.

Here—try the prototype yourself below, or you can try it directly in Figma.

Outcomes

The original user flow may have been closer to the end result than planned as it chunked out decisions into more manageable screens. As far as visual design goes I wanted to work from a range of colors, but realized I had too much going on that cluttered up the visual design.

I would like to give a special thank you to my UX Design mentor Benjamin Balderas and fellow students who assisted in this design process and provided feedback and support.