Détails du projet
Starting point
Wooof started as an Android mobile development discovery project, set in third year at Gobelins by Killian Sowa, a developer at Les Ignobles. Beyond the technical exercise, the app came from a simple observation: finding a trustworthy pet sitter is still a clunky process, mostly word-of-mouth - so I built a real booking flow instead of just a directory.
The challenge
The main challenge was designing a booking flow that's clear and reassuring (photo, average rating, distance, price, availability) without overloading the interface, while keeping a credible trust system: certified profiles, reviews left after each booking, direct messaging before committing.
Process & Decisions
The flow has four steps: onboarding and sign-in (email, social login, biometric unlock); a sitter publishes a care listing (walk or home-sitting category, price, location, photos); an owner discovers it through a category feed or a geolocated interactive map (custom pins, distance calculation); then sends a booking proposal with a message, which the sitter accepts or declines, opening a real-time conversation between the two profiles.
Execution
Built in Kotlin with Jetpack Compose (Material 3) and a Firebase backend: Auth for sign-in (email, social, biometrics), Firestore for real-time data (listings, proposals, conversations), Cloud Messaging for push notifications. The map runs on OSMdroid instead of Google Maps. One technical detail I'm pretty happy with: rather than pay for Firebase's Blaze plan to trigger pushes (new message, new proposal, accepted booking), a small worker runs for free on GitHub Actions every 5 minutes, polls Firestore for recent events and sends the notifications itself - works even with the app fully closed, no infrastructure cost.
