From overwhelm to a clear path forward
A concept planning tool that maps country-specific requirements, deadlines, and dependencies into one personalized timeline.
INDUSTRY.
PetTech
Tools.
Figma, Adobe CC, Midjourney
Role.
UI/UX & Brand Design
The challenge, and what I designed
Moving to a new place is stressful on its own, but relocating with pets adds to the complexity.
I interviewed pet owners who had moved with their pets, locally and internationally, and heard how they'd had to navigate scattered requirements and logistical hurdles — especially when the relocation involved large dogs and international destinations. Professional pet relocation services help, but are seen as expensive, while a DIY approach for international moves is stressful and risky.
From these pain points, I designed a personalized relocation planning tool that generates a smart checklist and timeline based on travel and pet details, helping users stay compliant, organized, and in control.
— Affinity map, Personas, Product Goals, Secondary research
User testing and iteration
My first round of testing used mid-fidelity wireframes to validate onboarding, walking users through entering their travel and pet details. Onboarding success exceeded 95%, with minimal confusion, so I moved on to testing the part of the flow where users see their generated personalized tasklist and timeline.
For that stage, I'd wireframed the Account Profile, Timeline, and Calendar screens in both desktop and mobile, to see how the layout should adapt across breakpoints. That's when I noticed some users gravitated toward the structured List View, while others reached for the Calendar View to get a clearer sense of deadlines. Rather than pick one over the other, I built a toggle so users could switch between both.
From there, I moved to mobile for the hi-fi screens — the screen size I'd expect someone to actually reach for when checking a deadline on the go. In that later-stage testing, the flexibility landed well, validating that the toggle, not a single fixed view, was the right call.
— Architecture Infrastructure, User/Task flows, Low-Fi screens, Hi-Fi Mock-Ups, Design System.
Giving PetForward a face
Before I touched color or type for the actual app, PetForward needed an identity of its own — something that could carry the "clear path forward" feeling outside the app too, on an icon, a deck, anywhere.
I started the same way I start any brand project: with words, not shapes. I brainstormed everything PetForward should feel like: smart, efficient, trustworthy, calm, clear, supportive. And I let those cluster into five themes that became the brand personality and values: supportive guidance, smart simplicity, empowered progress, adaptable expertise, global movement.
From there I sketched a few logo directions, from a dog-head silhouette to a paper airplane, and a few ways to bend the letter P into something that pointed forward. I narrowed it to three real contenders and put them in front of people to pressure-test my own instincts before committing. One direction pulled ahead clearly: an abstract mark where the P opens into an arrow.
That's the mark on PetForward today, in the blue that became the anchor for everything else in the interface: the palette, the type, the components. It's in the header of every screen, doing what it was designed to do — point forward.
— brand values, name, sketches, font pairing and design system.
MVP & expansion strategy
The initial launch would focus on validating the core task management feature through real-world usage.
Future phases include collaborative planning, secure document storage, calendar integrations, and destination-based pet resources — with long-term potential to evolve into a comprehensive pet relocation ecosystem connecting users with agencies, reviews, and travel support.