Paws

Team Project | UX & UI Design | Mobile App

This project was a collaborative UX/UI design effort by a team of four designers back in 2017 to create a dog-focused mobile app that combines health & activity tracking, route discovery, and social features to help dog owners connect through shared walks and meetups, inspired by platforms like Strava and AllTrails.

The Challenge

Dog owners often rely on multiple apps to track walks, discover dog-friendly routes, and connect with other dog owners. Existing fitness and meetup platforms are rarely designed specifically for dog-related activities, resulting in fragmented experiences and limited dog-specific insights.

The challenge was to design a mobile app that allows dog owners to seamlessly track activities, explore dog-friendly routes, and engage with a like-minded community—all within a single, intuitive experience.

Brainstorming & Ideation

We began with collaborative brainstorming sessions to explore challenges faced by active dog owners. As a team, we identified key pain points such as inconsistent tracking, lack of dog-specific metrics, and difficulty discovering or organizing group walks.

Through concept mapping and idea evaluation, we aligned on a solution that merges activity tracking with social meetup functionality tailored specifically to dog owners.

User Research & Interviews

To ground our design decisions in real user needs, we conducted a combination of user research and user interviews with dog owners who regularly walk, hike, or exercise with their dogs. This included secondary research, competitive analysis of apps like Strava and AllTrails, and qualitative interviews.

Insights revealed that users value simple and reliable tracking, clear progress visualization, dog-friendly route information, and opportunities to connect with other dog owners in their area. These findings were synthesized into user personas and problem statements that informed feature prioritization and design direction.

Wireframing & Prototyping

Using our research insights, we created low- to high-fidelity wireframes and interactive prototypes in Axure. Axure allowed us to rapidly iterate on layout, navigation, and interaction logic while simulating realistic mobile behaviors.

Key user flows included starting and tracking an activity, reviewing past walks, discovering routes, and creating or joining group meetups. Prototypes incorporated interactive components and transitions, enabling effective usability validation and team feedback before finalizing the experience.

Final Results

The final experience delivered “The Original Dog Fitness Tracker app”, a unified mobile platform that combines activity tracking, dog-friendly route discovery, and social connection into a single, intuitive experience designed specifically for dog owners. Users can easily track walks using trackers purchased from the integrated online store, review progress, and explore routes while accessing insights tailored to their dog rather than generic fitness data.

By bringing health, exploration, and community together, the app removes the need for multiple tools and encourages consistent use and engagement. Social features support group walks, weekly challenges, and rewards, turning everyday activities into shared experiences and establishing a strong foundation for long-term growth and future feature expansion.

Designs, trademarks, and logos of “Paws” are the intellectual property of Martin Madeanu.