Sanika Inamdar
Furritas Dog-Walking Service
Introduction
With the pandemic in 2020, more and more families welcomed pets in their homes, dogs being the most popular. As offices slowly opened by 2021, people had limited time to offer their pets. We started Furritas primarily with this need in mind.
Our solution was straightforward- let dog lovers walk your dogs! We employed college students and working professionals, all dog lovers to work as dog walkers in their neighbourhood.
With a steady increase in demand for our Dog Walking Service, we soon launched an App to help smooth out the booking & walker allocation process.
Roles
I assumed the following roles in designing this app:
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User Experience (UX) Designer
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Interaction (IxD) Designer
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User Interface (UI) Designer
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Visual Designer
Deliverables
Interaction Design:
High-fidelity interactive prototypes for key tasks on iOS & Android.
UX/UI Design:
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Competitive analysis
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User surveys and one-on-one interviews
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User Personas
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User journeys and task flows
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Site map
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Low-fidelity wireframes
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High-fidelity mockups and prototypes
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Usability tests and findings
Project Specifications
Duration: 6 weeks
Tools:
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Figma
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Photoshop
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Illustrator
Problems
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Trust & Reliability: lack of reliable & trustworthy dog-walkers.
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Convenience: A lot of hassle to find a dog walker.
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Tracking: No possibility to track their dogs' location when on walks with a walker.
Solutions
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Get detailed information about the walker assigned including their phone number & photo
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Make & edit bookings from monthly/ weekly subscriptions, or single walks
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Get notified when the walker is on their way to walk your dogs & track your dog's live location when on the walk.
Pet parents can book single walks/ weekly/ monthly subscriptions from their app & track their dogs’ walks from their phone.
Research
My research focused on understanding the users’ needs and designing our dog-walking service around these needs. I conducted more than 30 interviews with our customers which helped me get a deeper insight into the customers’ pain points. A questionnaire survey of more than 50 participants helped me quantify these pain points & ultimately translate these into a positive customer experience.
Findings
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Pet parents consider their pets to be their children, and hence need to feel assured when a new person is taking their dogs out on walks.
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Pets form a bond with a particular walker and prefer to walk with the same person every day. If a different person is allocated the walk, the pets tend to be unhappy/ anxious.
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Making bookings seamlessly & having the ability to edit them up to a day prior to the assigned walks gives parents more confidence in the service provider.
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Receiving regular updates and the Walkers’ location when their dog is out on a walk gives parents more comfort.
Getting Closer to User-centered Design
User research helped in designing the dog-walking App. A lot of insights were used from the Operations perspective & interviews with customers helped understand their pain points & technical solutions were designed around these pain points.
Exploring Common Tasks in Order to Heighten User Empathy
By creating and exploring the journey maps of three personas and their typical needs, I uncovered key emotional/procedural moments that the Dog walking App needed to address. The anxiety someone might feel, for example when their dog is walking with a new unknown person. Or the urgent need for someone to find a walker due to unforeseen circumstances. To ensure the app’s stickiness, it would need to overcome these problems and not introduce new points of friction.
Furritas Dog Walking App
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Upon signing up to the Furritas Dog Walking service, users are able to browse through the different walk-packages and decide on the one best suited for them. We offer single walks, along with weekly & monthly subscriptions.
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Users are able to select a preferred time for their dogs’ walks based on the availability of walkers in their area.
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A calendar view showed them their scheduled walks per month, along with the status of their individual subscription.
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Users are able to add multiple pets & schedule walks for each pet individually. They are also able to add special instructions for the assigned walker.
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Users receive updates when the walker is on their way so they can keep their dogs ready for their walks.
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Users can track their dogs’ location when our walkers take them for their scheduled walks.
New Onboarding Flow
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The User Interface celebrated the humanisation of pets.
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Important data regarding the pets’ health and behaviour was gathered in the sign-up process, this helped us design the experience of our offered services better.
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We also realised that users were heavily reliant on the pet parent community for general advice, so we added this feature to help users connect with others & elevate the experience of being parents to their pets.
Community
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The Community Section helped users educate themselves with useful content regarding their pets’ conditions & behaviour.
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It also provided them DIY tips, recipes & blogs written by other parents.
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Users could browse through activities which they could do with their dogs such as Play-time & Treks and also showed Pet-friendly Restaurants in their area.
Home Boarding
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Users are able to make bookings for Home Boarding with ease. Upon Entering the desired dates and drop-off & pick-up timings, the available boarders in their area are shown.
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Customer Reviews for every boarder helps users feel more confident, especially when boarding for the first time.
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Users are able to see if there are any other pets at the boarders, along with their compatibility with their own pet.
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Pictures of the boarders’ homes are available for users to see, to make an informed decision about their pets’ boarding.
Lessons Learned
