Overview
Apparently, social media platforms for dog owners are few and far in between. ChewyBook solves this problem by creating a platform designed for your dog to find new friends, connect with other dogs, and discover new places. You can find new friends, discover new places for your dog, as well as create pages to share your knowledge with other dog owners.
My Role
Lead Product Designer, Research, UI/UX Design, QA
Timeline
2 months (April - May)
Team
Michael Septirymen, Dan Brisson, Louis Paul-Hus
Software Used
Figma
The Ask
Dakia Canada was approached by a forward-thinking client who identified a gap in the market for a dog-centric social media platform. This client envisioned a space where dogs could connect with each other, discover local dog parks, and access valuable resources like dog recipes and training information.
The Opportunity
How might we use design to create a social media platform catered towards dog-owners in North America and Europe?
User Research
Initial Research
To ensure ChewyBook addressed a genuine market need, I began by conducting a competitive analysis of existing platforms like Dogpack. This research showed that the market for dog-centric social media was high in demand, and that certain features like a map of dog-services, as well as being able to chat with other people on the app are highly valued.
Additionally, I created a moodboard to visually define the app's aesthetic and user experience. Finally, I designed a general user flow for the app to inform the design and development of the app.
Figure 1 - The moodboard used to ideate and collect inspiration for the app.
Ideation of the Product
User Flow
Figure 2 - The general user flow created for the app; made in FigJam.
The Solution
The solution is ChewyBook, a full-service social media platform complete with the ability to follow friends, chat with other dog owners, as well as discover new shops, cafes, and more for your dog.
Development and Launch
Development and Iterating
After designing the screens in Figma, I handed off the designs to our developer, who developed the app inside of FlutterFlow. During the development phase, I iterated the designs multiple times to ensure user-centric design standards were being continuously met.
For example, the screens in Figure 3 were added after the first iteration to ensure the user is able to more easily understand the current state of the app. After development, our QA team reported more positive feedback from users.
Figure 3 - Auxilary screens designed to improve user understanding of the current app state.
Handoff to Developers
Once the designs were ready to develop, I handed it off to the developers. I used a feedback loop workflow to ensure the product is being developed in line with the design and the research conducted.
The first step is marking the screens ready to develop by tagging them with the "ready for development" tag in Figma. I also make sure to highlight the correct versions and archive older versions of screens.
The second step is to schedule meetings with the developers to go over the development process and to address any issues they encounter. This process is how I iterated for loading screens in Figure 3.
This process is repeated until the final product is developed.
Reflection and Conclusion
Reflection
After development and iterating the design a few times, I am better able to implement User-Centric design principles - and have since applied them to this product and other products.
I also think that we would benefit from a larger design team, as I was the only product designer for ChewyBook. However, being the only product designer for this project also taught me how to communicate with developers and product owners, further refining my communication skills.
Conclusion
ChewyBook is now available for download in Canada on the App Store and the Google Play Store.
