Charley

product design, branding

The Brief

Research, strategize, and design a new dog walking app that addresses today's challenges for pet owners while maintaining an appealing and user-friendly interface and branding that feels unique for the space.

The Challenge

Endlessly browsing through apps looking for the right match causes wasted time and less than perfect results for busy app users. The onboarding process is overwhelming and the sorting through endless options leads to decision fatigue as both owners and walkers seek out trustworthy options.

The solution

Charley makes the onboarding process quick and easy and matches dog owners to dog walkers based on specific schedules and specialties. It provides a user-first experience that ensures a reliable selection of trustworthy and hyper-specific walker options.

Research & Define

Market Analysis

• Explored Rover and Wag to understand the industry benchmarks and standard functionalities and features.

• Evaluated the UX of existing products to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.

• Scanned reddit threads and other online forums to learn about the experiences of other Rover and Wag app users.

User interviews

• Conducted 1:1 interviews with both pet owners and walkers to learn about their experiences, pain points, preferences, and desired app features.

• Explored the challenges app users face and what they find valuable in the search process.

The findings

By combining the qualitative and quantitative data from the market analysis and user interviews, I identified three main pain points for app users.

User Personas

The qualitative and quantitative research revealed the paint points, goals, and ambitions of dog owners and dog walkers. From the data, user personas were shaped to represent the larger pool of users. These personas served as guides throughout the decision making and design process.

Ideation

User Flow

Once identifying the key pain points, I designed the user flow with a focus on capturing specific scheduling and preference selections to create better matches between busy dog owners and busy walkers.

Wireframes

I opted for higher fidelity wireframes at this stage, focusing on core structure and functionality, allowing for early feedback before applying the visual language.

Visual Language & Branding

Charley’s brand identity is energetic, yet soft, bringing a simple and calming visual language to the user experience. The typography is simple, yet rounded, ensuring clear communication and legibility while breathing some fun and playfulness into the look and feel. Charley is visually engaging and communicates the necessary trust users need to get going in their search.

Key Takeaways

This process provided valuable insights into user research and product design as a whole. Understanding the user’s perspective and pain points is crucial to the entire design thinking process. Using evidence to support your design decisions and iterating or refining ideas early played a huge roll in the output of this project. While there’s always room for improvement and further testing, each step in this journey was impactful in my growth and approach to product design.