Snoutscan
A mobile identification concept that treats every dog's nose like a fingerprint.
The brief
Help more lost dogs make it home.
Millions of dogs are lost in the United States every year, and many enter shelters without a reliable way to identify them. Snoutscan's premise was that the unique biometric pattern of a dog's nose could become a natural, non-invasive identifier.
I was the sole designer responsible for rethinking the UX and interface three weeks before a stakeholder proof of concept. The job was to make a novel technology immediately understandable and the capture interaction forgiving enough to work with a moving animal.
01 / System
Give an unfamiliar idea familiar rules
I built a compact design system around Apple's interface conventions, using a consistent grid, type scale, components and color palette. Familiar patterns reduced the amount of new behavior customers had to learn.
02 / Onboarding
Explain the magic before asking for trust
Onboarding introduced the nose-print concept in plain language, then moved through account creation and profile setup in short, focused steps. The product needed to feel useful before it asked for personal information or camera access.
03 / Capture
Design for the least cooperative user in the room
Capturing a dog's snout was the hardest interaction. I borrowed the real-time framing and feedback model from Face ID, then added automatic capture, concise prompts and a squeaky-toy button after testing with puppies.
That small addition turned a frustrating edge case into a moment with personality and gave the owner a practical way to direct the dog's attention.
04 / Recovery
Move from panic to a useful action plan
Owners could mark a dog as lost, add the last known location and time, offer a reward and notify nearby users. The flow prioritized speed while keeping the information specific enough to help the community respond.
05 / Prototype
The proof of concept in motion
The final prototype connected education, setup, biometric capture and lost-dog recovery into one coherent mobile journey.