Animal Aid is a non-profit organization dedicated to rehoming lost, unwanted, and abandoned animals in their community.
In this project I streamlined the online adoption process of Animal Aid by making it more efficient and informative. I enhanced the websites communication with potential adopters, using clarifying viual language and providing detailed information on animal care post-adoption while also highlighting additional services provided by Animal Aid.
I improved the online adoption process to provide users with more detailed information, enabling them to make informed decisions when selecting an animal to apply for. This also reduces the workload for Animal Aid employees by gathering more comprehensive information in the adoption enquiry, helping to decrease the number of unsuitable applicants.
Role: Ux/Ui Designer
Skills: User Research, Research Synthesis, Ideation, High and low fidelity prototyping
Toolkit: Figma, InDesign
Project Outcome
With clear icons and an improved user flow potential adoptees can easily see which dog might be suitable for them.
Adoption profile
The dog's adoption profile has been updated to display all key information at a glance, using icons to clearly convey the dog's most important adoption characteristics.
Search filter
The new search filter allows users to easily find dogs based on specific characteristics.
Enquiry form
The clear prompts in the enquiry form provide shelter employees with essential information about potential adopters, reducing their workload and streamlining the dog-matching process without adding extra barriers.
Enquiry received
The enquiry received page includes key links to other sections of the website, ensuring users have access to all the information they need.
Business Goals
Animal Aid aims to enhance their website’s adoption process.
Their goal is to create a more user-friendly experience, allowing visitors to easily navigate the site, view detailed information about dogs, and ensure that applicants are matched with suitable pets.
They want to gather more information about potential adopters without increasing barriers for potential adoptees, reducing the workload for staff.
Additionally, they seek to increase awareness of their other services and encourage donations, all while ensuring the solution is cost-effective and seamlessly integrates with the existing website.
Research
The topic of this research was ”Improving the efficiency of the adoption process and creating a more intuitive user interface”.
My research revealed that users struggle with Animal Aids online adoption process, finding it inefficient and difficult to navigate. To research this topic I conducted one on one Interviews, a competitor analysis and a survey.
I recruited participants for the interviews by contacting people who have adopted dogs in the past year using the Animal Aid website their ages ranged between 22 and 46 years old. Questions were focussed on gaining insight in user frustrations in the online adoption process and mapping where the interfaces visual communication could be improved.
In the competitor analysis I mapped weaknesses and strengths of Animal Aids main competitors including, RSPCA, Petrescue and the Lost Dogs Home. I analyzed what primary information is communicated and which features and visual elements are utelized in similar websites.
Research Synthesis
To synthesize the data I created journey maps, persona’s and an affinity map. The following area’s of improvement were highlighted:
Communication: The website lacks clarity in conveying important details about each dog, making it difficult for users to understand the adoption requirements.
Many potential adopters are unaware of the full range of information available on the site, including post-adoption care and other services offered by Animal Aid.
UI: The user interface is difficult to navigate, with multiple unnecesary steps required to reach the adoption inquiry process. Some parts of the UI visibilty need to be imporved and there are redundant pop-ups that repeat information, making the process lengthy and disengaging for users.
Research highlights information communication and UI efficiency are important areas for improvement.
Ideation and design
The new adoption process aims to seamlessly blend into Animal Aids existing website’s design and focusses on providing clear information to potential adopters.
Animal Aid’s existing website requires a new feature that seamlessly integrates into the current design. The new design must be cost-effective while delivering maximum impact.
I updated design to focus on presenting all relevant information at a glance, using clear communication through icons and clearly marked dog details. The enhanced the adoption enquiry form to prompt potential adopters to provide key information about themselves and the dog's future lifestyle, helping the shelter make informed decisions about adopting out the dog the user is applying for or suggest alternative matches.
Additionally, the I made sure the design will guide users toward useful resources on dog care and other post-adoption services. Potential adopters can read all the information they need before they book a meet-and-greet, decreasing the amoumt of questions to the staff and decreasing their workload.
I worked within the technical constraint of ensuring the design remained functional while employees uploaded information through Shelterbuddy, a software solution for tracking animal data.
Useability testing
With targeted quick wins a new adoption process has been implemented into Animal Aids existing website design. Improving the User Interface communication and creating a more smooth and efficient adoption process for potential adopters and shelter employees.
For my usability testing, I posted a call for participants on Animal Aid’s social media, inviting people currently interested in adopting a dog to take part in a user test. I asked them to complete several tasks within a high-fidelity prototype while I observed their behavior.
During the testing, it became evident that the new interface was more intuitive and informative compared to the original design. Users had fewer questions about the dogs listed and found the icons particularly helpful in determining whether a dog matched their needs. After completing the adoption process, participants had fewer questions about both the process itself and dog ownership. They also showed greater awareness of Animal Aid’s additional services and were more inclined to use them.
One key insight from the testing was that users tended to overlook some of the dog's statistics. This prompted me to revise the profiles, ensuring the statistic boxes were more clearly separated to improve readability.
Underneath you will see the improvements made to the original design.
Call to action hierarchy
On the homepage, transparent buttons have been replaced with more visible ones. The two primary calls to action have been enlarged, and the UI has been redesigned to accommodate a background image and improve text placement.
Users now instantly see both call to action buttons. The donation button in the main navigation menu is immediately noticed by users leading to more donations.
Filter
I implemented a dropdown menu with filter options to help users efficiently search for dog profiles.
This filter makes it easier for users to narow down their search and making it easier to find the most suitable dog for them.
Dog’s Profile
The animal profile has been made shorter with a smaller profile picture to safe on screen real estate. Icons are used to clearly communicate important aspects of the dog and general and health statistics are all clearly framed in a dotpointed list. All of this means that users can find relevant information in one short short glance without scrolling. I have made a hierarchy in the calls to action the primary being filling out and enquiry and secondary being calling.
This has reduced uestions from potential adopters about dogs. With the new desig users are more inclined to fill out an enquiry form saving the staff valuable time from speaking to people on the phone.
Navigation to important information
After users have filled in their expression of interest the website navigates to a page that clearly states that they have filled in an enquiry and links them to relevant services and information available on the website.
Users are more aware of the different services Animal Aid offers increasing the usage of those and leading to more income and less dogs being returned to the shelter.