Pupo
A trust-centered dog walking system that makes care visible in real time.
Sep. - Dec. 2025
Figma, Gemini
Team
Individual Project
Project Overview
Pupo is a trust-centered dog walking system designed for busy urban dog owners who feel anxious once a walk begins. By pairing a camera-enabled smart collar with a companion app, Pupo turns real-time walk signals into calm, glanceable reassurance.
Problem
The trust gap begins after the handoff.Once the walk starts, owners lose visibility into what is happening. Existing platforms support booking, profiles, and post-walk summaries, but they provide limited reassurance during the walk itself.
Solution
Pupo captures real-time signals such as location and behavior and translates them into calm, glanceable reassurance, surfacing alerts only when action is needed.
Target Audience
Busy urban dog owners who outsource walks but still want emotional reassurance during the handoff, walk, and return. They are not trying to micromanage the walker — they want quick signs that their dog is safe, calm, and cared for.
Understanding the Problem
To understand hesitation around dog walking services, I conducted an online survey and reviewed existing dog walking platforms. The research focused on three questions: why owners hesitate, what information they need during a walk, and where current platforms fail to create reassurance.
Owners were not only worried about finding a walker. They were worried about the invisible middle of the service — the time when the walk is happening but they have no way to understand what is going on.
Key Insight
User Needs
Opportunity
hmmm, so what are the Current Platforms?
This is where Pupo come into play
THIS LEAD TO:
Ratings and profiles support selection.
But reassurance must happen in real time.
Problem Framing
Current platforms support selection and scheduling.
But they provide limited reassurance during the walk itself.
The experience gap occurs in real time — not before or after.
Design Goal
Create a system that helps dog owners trust what’s happening during the walk, using a smart dog collar to surface real-time signs of care rather than relying on constant alerts.
Concept
Designing trust for the moments you can’t see
Instead of asking owners to watch every second, Pupo creates small, meaningful windows into the walk — enough to feel informed, but not so much that the experience becomes constant surveillance.
Solution Overview
Trust shifts from assumption to verification
Brand Aesthetics
The visual direction balances warmth and reliability. Soft colors and hand-drawn details make the system feel approachable, while structured UI patterns and the collar product language communicate accountability and trust.
How the System Works
1.Collar Observes
The smart collar detects location, movement, pauses, and key care moments during the walk.
Pupo turns collar signals into simple updates, such as route progress, calm behavior, water breaks, and safe pauses.
Owners receive calm, glanceable reassurance without constantly messaging the walker or monitoring the walk.
Getting Started with Pupo
Before the first walk, owners set up their dog profile, connect the smart collar, and define reassurance preferences. This helps Pupo understand what “normal” looks like for the dog before the walk begins.
Checking on Betty During the Walk
Walker Communication
Pupo supports communication without turning the walker into a live reporter. The chat keeps basic coordination simple, while the collar handles lightweight updates in the background.
Reflection
This project helped me think about trust as a system rather than a single feature. Reassurance is not created by showing everything; it comes from deciding what information matters, when it should appear, and how calmly it should be communicated.
Next Steps
