DogVacay Host Tools
Website · 2015-2016
DogVacay was a leading service that helped connect pet owners with trusted pet sitters.
Its mission was to create a better alternative to kennel boarding while improving the lives of pets and the people that love them.
Before its acquisition by Rover in 2017, there were over 25,000 monthly active hosts that used DogVacay to make supplemental income while caring for other people's pets.
While working at DogVacay, I was responsible for designing the end-to-end host experience.
My design work included a more comprehensive sign-up flow, an improved host dashboard, profile editing, and new features for managing communications and bookings.
These tools enabled DogVacay to streamline their host review process, promote more desirable host behaviors, and provide a platform letting their pet sitters more effectively manage their business.
My Role
- Product Strategy
- Interaction Design
- Visual Design
Other Team Members
- Stephanie Redmon, Product Manager
- Omid Majdi, Product Manager
- Andrew Short, Product Manager
- Adria Hash, Director of Host Community
- Daniel Breiner, Marketplace Development
- Seth Broomer, Software Engineer
- Angus Perkerson, Software Engineer
- Tena Percy, Software Engineer
- Natalie Aleman, Quality Assurance
Host Sign-Up Experience
One of the first things I worked on at DogVacay was a complete redesign of the Host Sign-Up experience.
The previous host sign-up flow was not comprehensive, and it often took weeks for hosts to be screened and approved on DogVacay.
This was an inefficient process, where much of the information collected by DogVacay after someone submits an application online ended up as unstructured notes.
The redesign was focused on shortening prescreening times and capturing more structured data that could be presented to customers in a future profile redesign.
I worked with product managers and host-facing staff to identify pain points in the existing sign-up process, then proceeded to map out a list of potential questions we wanted to ask of new host applicants.
Putting these questions into logical buckets, I then iterated on wireframes and visual layout concepts with feedback gathered in user testing with existing hosts.
DogVacay had just developed a new brand guideline prior to this project, but my work on the new Host Sign-Up flow extended the vocabulary of this styleguide.
Further iterations of the layouts were focused on refining and re-ordering the application questions in order to make the sign up process easier to complete.
Preliminary Content Sketches
Early Layout Concepts
About You and Experience
Your Home
Services You Offer
Booking Policy, Description, and Photos
Host Dashboard
I designed the Host Dashboard to provide an overview of the information and tools you need to run your dog sitting business on DogVacay.
The Notifications module highlight things you need to pay attention to, and the Performance module gives you insight into the metrics that determine how you will rank in customer-facing search results.
Layout Concepts
Selected Design
Messages and Bookings
The Messages and Bookings sections of the website are designed for use by both customers and pet sitters to communicate and keep track of pet care reservations.
Messages
Bookings
