to help you take care of who you care about most.
A warm and playful app designed to connect dog owners with trusted walkers and sitters in their community. Users can browse walker profiles, join local dog groups, and schedule walks or visits all in one convenient place. The app encourages connection, trust, and care, while also making it easy to track your dog’s activities and favorite routes. It’s about creating a friendly, organized space for both dogs and their humans to thrive together.
this fun project is in progress! This is just a sneak peak of the cuteness to come.
the brief
Dog owners often struggle to find reliable, trustworthy care for their pets—especially services that feel personal, safe, and flexible. Existing dog-walking platforms can feel impersonal, overwhelming, or purely utility-driven, making it difficult for owners to feel confident leaving their pets in someone else’s care.
Build trust between dog owners and caregivers
Make booking walks and in-home care simple and stress-free
Emphasize community and personal connection over gig-style transactions
Support flexible care needs, from daily walks to short-term dog watching
Design an experience that feels warm, friendly, and reassuring
Key Features
Walker & Sitter Profiles: Detailed profiles highlighting experience, availability, and personality
In-Home Dog Watching: Care options for dogs to stay in their own environment
Community Dog Groups: Local groups for shared walks, meetups, and socialization
Scheduling & Messaging: Easy booking, real-time updates, and direct communication
Research
Research focused on understanding the social and logistical challenges of cooking in shared living environments. Through informal interviews, personal observation, and competitive analysis, patterns emerged around miscommunication, uneven labor, and lack of shared visibility.
Key insights revealed that roommates want to cook together but struggle with planning, grocery coordination, and accountability. Existing tools were found to prioritize individual users, leaving a gap for systems designed around shared ownership. These insights directly informed Foodie’s emphasis on collaborative planning, shared grocery lists, and lightweight task assignment.
Research was conducted within an academic context and relied primarily on qualitative insights from peers. While this limited the scale of findings, it allowed for deeper, experience-based understanding of shared living dynamics.
Trust outweighs price and speed when selecting pet care services
Owners value transparency and personal details over polished branding
Communication frequency directly impacts perceived safety and satisfaction
In-home care feels safer and more desirable for many owners than drop-off services
Community and repeat relationships increase long term confidence and retention
Research Insights
Conclusion
Walkies demonstrates how thoughtful UX design can humanize service-based platforms. By centering trust, communication, and community, the app reframes dog walking and dog watching as relationship-driven experiences—giving pet owners peace of mind while supporting caregivers in building meaningful, recurring connections.
Design Focus
Friendly, approachable visual language to reduce anxiety
Clear trust signals through transparency and consistency
Simple flows for booking, communication, and updates
Emphasis on safety, care, and emotional reassurance