Woofie: Connecting Dog Owners and Building Community

End-to-End UI UX Design

ROLE

User Research, End-to-End design, Testing, Prototyping (Solo project)

TOOLS

Figma, Miro, Optimal workshop, Google Docs, Google Slides

DURATION

4months(part-time)

Woofie is a platform designed to connect dog owners, allowing them to create profiles, connect with other dog owners in their area, and find dog-related events in their community.

PROJECT INFO

Dog owners face several challenges due to lacking a comprehensive platform that addresses multiple pet-related needs. Specifically, the absence of a platform with more than one feature for pets poses difficulties for dog owners.

Additionally, dog owners struggle to find pet-friendly places and encounter challenges when faced with the presence of various dog breeds at dog parks.

THE PROBLEMS

How can we decrease the time that users spend searching? We wanted to create a user-friendly platform that facilitates connections between dog owners.

PROJECT GOALS

From this Interview, I gained some key insights:

  • The current most popular search platform is Google, But users couldn’t find their needs, such as pet-friendly places. 100% of participants agreed that we need a pet community.

  • Some of them have reactive or sensitive dogs, so it is hard to find the right match to play with.

I conducted the user interview with 5 participants to understand the user’s pain points and perspective.

UNDERSTAND USERS

RESEARCH

CONSTRAINTS AND MARKET VALIDATION

  • How can we collect the data from pet-friendly places?

  • Are there any technical restrictions or considerations?

  • Who else is solving a problem similar to the one I found?

  • How are they solving this problem?

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

I conducted a competitor analysis to understand other competitors out there.

Findings from this analysis of competitors:

  • There were some apps for dog owners, but there were either not user-friendly or had issues with functionality.

  • Users can’t find information about the dog/dog owner both. We need to provide the information both.

How Might We…

…make pet owners feel comfortable so they find their pet needs efficiently?

IDEATION

This exercise gathered insights into how users perceive and categorize information. It helps users identify common patterns and mental models when organizing information.

CARD SORTING

5 participants

An open card sorted

35 cards

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • I found similar categories by participants.

    • Dog&owner profile / Fur babies / Find a match

    • Community / Social / Events

    • Main / Dashboard / Homepage

  • One participant suggested a different card instead of the owner’s occupation. (e.g., new pet owner, LGBT)

Based on the insights gained from the card sorting exercise, a site map was created to organize the content and features of Woofie coherently and intuitively.

SITE MAP

The user/task flow outlines the steps a user takes to achieve a specific goal on the platform. For Woofie, the primary user flow includes the following key steps:

  1. User registration and profile creation

  2. Discovering dog-friendly places

USER/TASK FLOW

Scenario: The user wants to find a pet-friendly trail that pet owners recommend.

DESIGN

SCKETCHES

Sketches helped visualize the proposed design solutions, including a registration screen dog-friendly places discovery screen that displays the list of events, search filters, and event details.

I tried to design wireframes with a consistent and user-friendly navigation system throughout all screens.

MID-FI WIREFRAMES

I aimed to create an intuitive and visually appealing interface. A clean and modern design with dog-themed elements was adopted, utilizing a color palette that evoked feelings of brightness, joy, and curiosity.

BRANDING & UI KITS

HIGH-FI DESIGN

I created consistent and user-friendly UI to the high-fidelity screens.

ITERATION

USABILITY TEST

To gather user feedback and validate the proposed designs, usability testing sessions were conducted.

Participants (6 people)

  • Conducted by Zoom

  • Users between the age of 26 and 43

  • Tested 2 tasks

    • Task1: Sign up and Log in

    • Task2: Find a dog-friendly trail and save it to your profile

USABILITY TEST FEEDBACK

Change the save button

This was the most frequent issue when I tested my design. The paw icon was confusing to recognize as a save button. 4 of the 6 users recommend changing the button to either the heart or bookmark icon.

Make a “sign up” button on the landing page.

Create a CTA button as a sign-up button

Users were confused about the absence of a sign-up button on the main page. I added a sign-up button next to the log-in option to address this.

I noticed the initial call-to-action button (search) was unclear regarding navigation. To address this, I replaced it with a sign-up button that has clear and concise wording.

FINAL DESIGN

The end result of the design effectively showcases the brand identity, with all elements being clear for easy user interaction. The process of building everything from the ground up, including market analysis, prototyping, and user testing, was enjoyable for me.

However, the time constraints proved challenging, particularly with the research phase taking longer than anticipated. I will apply the lessons learned to manage my time better.

PROJECT TAKEAWAY

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