PawPals

In the UX course, our assigned task was to design an app that addresses a specific everyday problem, prioritizing the refinement of the user experience (UX) over the user interface (UI). Within this framework, we decided to analyze how the daily lives of dog owners could be facilitated through an app. This idea gave rise to “Pawpals,” an application that securely connects dog owners with dog walkers, thereby making their everyday routines a bit easier.

Research

A crucial milestone in the development of our project was the systematic application of various design methods to determine what product our target group really needs. In the initial phase, we brainstormed within the field of dog ownership focusing on the aspects of dog care and maintenance. Then we conducted interviews with dog owners, which we strucured further trough an Affinity Diagram and categorized into three age groups. This was meaningful as similar responses often occurred within these groups.

Based on this information, we set our target group as individuals ranging from 20 to 40 years old. This group demonstrated a receptiveness to adopting a new app, expressed a primary need for assistance in their everyday life concerning their dogs, and were willing to take initiative themselves. Next we conducted a targetgroup analysis and created personas based on these findings. All these methods helped us within our defined target audience to crystallize the main problem of dog owners and were ultimately formulated into “How might we” questions.

We posed two main questions for ourselves: firstly, how and with what motivation could strangers contribute to making the lives of dog owners easier, and secondly, how to ensure a secure approach, considering that many of our interviewees expressed concerns about entrusting their dogs to strangers.

Solution

To solve these questions, we initiated another brainstorming process and used other methods, helping to determine what our user group needs. During this phase, we explored various directions and essential functionalities necessary for an app to tackle our issue. After generating diverse approaches, we deliberated on the most viable ideas, ultimately settling on a matching system and the core concept of linking individuals without dogs who enjoy animal interaction with dog owners, that would like to be relieved of their main workload: walking the dog.
Furthermore, we conducted a SWOT analysis to gain deeper insights into the reasons, opportunities, and weaknesses surrounding our idea. Once again, the significance of security emerged as a pivotal aspect. Using the MSCW system, we then identified the essential features required for the app.

To ensure security as much as possible, we decided that every user must undergo a verification process at the beginning. Additionally, one can only independently walk another person’s dog after both parties have met and established trust. Furthermore, during the walk in “Walkmode,” the walker’s current location is always displayed and the dog owner gets live updates of the happenings during the walk.

With all these defined elements, we now developed two user flows, one for walkers and one for owners, which illustrated the entire app workflow and showed us all the necessary screens. These were then translated into wireframes. After several revisions and additions to these wireframes, we finally focused on the design.

Design

After considering several design variations, we opted for a minimalist design that is accentuated by subtle elements and lends a playful touch in line with the theme. A vibrant purple serves as the primary color for the main buttons, etc., while lighter shades are used for the background and less significant elements. Additionally, special screens feature dog illustrations accompanied by swirling patterns that frequently appear in the background of the screens.

In practice, this is how it appears on the screens.