Spot the Animals
A wildlife-spotting social app that turned scattered sightings into a live, map-based community feed.
Project Snapshot
- Client
- Spot the Animals
- Industry
- Travel & Wildlife Tourism
- Platform
- Android only
- Timeline
- 4 months
- Our Role
- Native Android development and UI/UX design
The Challenge
Spot the Animals came out of a simple observation from wildlife park guides and eco-tourists: sightings of tigers, leopards, and other animals were being shared informally in WhatsApp groups and forums, with no reliable way to know how recent a sighting was or exactly where it happened. Before iMobdev was brought in, the concept existed as a paw-print logo and a list of animal categories — no live map, no feed, no way to actually capture and share a sighting from the field.
The gaps were specific. There was no location-anchored sighting feed, so a "recent tiger sighting" claim couldn't be verified or plotted against a map a traveler could actually use. There was no lightweight way to contribute a sighting from a phone while still out in the field, away from reliable connectivity. And the founding team wanted social sign-in from day one to keep onboarding friction near zero for casual users who'd otherwise never create a new account just to check nearby wildlife activity.
Every season without a working app meant local guides and eco-tourism operators kept defaulting to unstructured group chats, which meant no historical record of sighting patterns and no way for the business to demonstrate real user engagement to potential park and tourism-board partners.
Technically, the team wanted a map-first experience with fast marker clustering and photo-driven cards, on Android first, since that was the dominant platform among their target guide and ranger user base.
Our Solution
iMobdev approached Spot the Animals as a location-and-time problem first, and a social feed second. Every core screen was built to answer "what was seen, where, and how recently" as fast as possible.
We built a native Android app with a Google Maps-based location layer at its core, plotting every sighting as a custom paw-print pin that a user can tap to preview the animal, timestamp, and distance before committing to view full details or navigate there. A Nearby/Recent toggle on the main feed lets users switch between proximity-based and chronology-based views of the same sighting data without leaving the screen.
On the UX side, we kept the visual identity built around a deep red-and-orange wildlife palette with the paw-print mark carried through every primary action button, and used large, photo-forward cards on the feed so an animal's identity is recognizable at a glance before a user reads any text.
For account access, we integrated Facebook login as the primary sign-in path with a skip option for browsing without an account, minimizing the barrier between opening the app and seeing live sightings. The "Post Your Animal" flow was built as a single camera-first form — snap a photo, name the animal, add a short note, post — so a field sighting could be logged in well under a minute.
Delivery was phased in two sprints: the map, feed, and detail views shipped first as the core browsing experience, with the Facebook login, posting flow, and filter system following immediately after to complete the full contribute-and-discover loop.
The Impact
Spot the Animals launched with a complete sighting-to-map loop: browse nearby or recent sightings as photo cards, tap through to full detail with species information and a "Reach There" navigation action, or drop a pin of your own from the field in a few taps. The Nearby/Recent toggle and live map view gave users two genuinely different, useful ways to explore the same underlying data.
The low-friction Facebook sign-in and camera-first posting flow kept the contribution barrier low enough that casual travelers, not just dedicated trackers, started logging sightings. iMobdev continues to support Spot the Animals as it explores park-partner integrations and richer species data.
Key Features
What We Built
Live Sighting Feed
Photo-forward cards showing each animal, sighting time, and distance away.
Interactive Sighting Map
Custom paw-print map pins with tap-to-preview animal cards and navigation.
Nearby / Recent Toggle
Switch between proximity-based and time-based views of the same feed.
Camera-First Posting
Capture a photo, name the animal, and post a sighting in under a minute.
Filter & Live View
Filter the feed by species and criteria, or switch into a live-view mode.
Facebook Sign-In
One-tap social login with a skip option to browse without creating an account.
Tech Stack
- ANAndroid (Java)
- GOGoogle Maps SDK
- FAFacebook SDK
- REREST APIs
- Firebase
Screenshots
App in Action
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“iMobdev turned our paw-print logo into a real map-based community. Guides in the field use it daily now to log and check sightings.”
Founder
Spot the Animals
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