Pawlove
Personal project for an innovative pet charity ecosystem
project OVERVIEW
Improve the UX of Pet Adoption & Information & Charity
Responsibilities: User Research, Project Planning & Management, Prototyping, UX/UI Design
Keywords: Pet, Information Platform, Adoption
Duration: 3 months
bACKGROUND
We need a personal, accountable, and impactful pet adoption process.
Homeless pets are a social issue that lasts for a long time. Usually, pet shelters take in unwanted pets and pets that people can't care for. However, the amount of funding a shelter receives directly impacts the number of animals that a shelter can take in and therefore how many they can adopt out.
A pet shelter business' profitability isn't widely known, because most shelters are run as non-profits. Most shelters receive donations to help fund their operations. The main cause of crowded shelters is some pets that have been waiting to find a forever home for more than many years. There is a stereotype that people are frequently overlooked some pets are considered ‘less adoptable’, like senior pets, black dogs, and cats. So how can we wake awareness of pet adoption and even apply a new commercial model for pet charity?
User Study
In-depth interview
I conducted Contextual Inquiry. I chose to interview people between the ages of 20-55. A pet shelter's ideal customer is someone who loves animals. Such a person may want to adopt a pet, and they might be willing to pay a fee to do so.
Insights:
There are four main findings after the apprentice interviews:
1.The information (volunteer activity and adoption info) are limited.
2. Many animal lovers who cannot keep pets don't know how to help the pet shelter.
3. Loving people who donate to the pet shelter, also want to track what they have done.
4. There is no communication channel for pet issues discussion.
Target User
This app is for pet lovers who are interested in pet adoption and charity, in a transparent way.
Pawlove’s philosophy is to revoke faceless giving and increase transparency in the donation/volunteer activities process. It could work on a system level, including not only people who give and receive but also local volunteers and pet keepers, so the money stays in the community.
User Flow
Through the user flow, the structure layer could be divided into what functions are essential and what should be added. Since it's an app that combines three kinds of services, clear entries were created for new and potential users to better understand the purpose of the app.
Paper Prototype
Usability testing
The main users participating in the user test are people interested in pets and pet adoption. We chose to test people between 20-55 years old. Most of them have smartphones and have experience using various apps to ensure that they can complete the test smoothly. After testing, we found 4 issues.
Takeaways
1. Icon has low recognition and recall: users do not know what the icons in the application bar, live page and community page mean.
2. Confusing feature: Positioning and shelter functions are confusing when entering stray pet information.
3. Marks are not obvious: At the time of collection, on the interface of the nearby shelter, the user does not know which shelter he is contacting.
4. In the live page, the position of the donation icon and the exit icon are too close, and users are prone to slip.
Wireframe
While creating the user flow, I could organize the service into three structures: discovery, activities and profile. Based on this, I arranged a wireframe. This was an important step in creating a framework to visualize how the features would be presented and how to distribute the content.
Design System
I chose Quicksand for the font because it has a clean, modern, and geometric form. It also has a dynamic weight choice, which is considered effective in terms of visual contrast and accessibility.
I chose the color scarlet-red to reflect the brand of products that will be made available by PawLove, drawing inspiration from the sense of warm and love. I selected a neon style yellow and green as accent colors to contrast with the primary color.
Prototype
Welcome to PawLove: a multi-sided platform for pet charity in a clever way
PawLove is designed to make a personal, accountable, and impactful pet charity operation. By connecting pet lovers from all walks and integrating the help channels without any tedious processes. Users can browse various information(breed, old, gender, ect.) of homeless pets in the shelter.
Users can send adoption request online. Every available pets information are clearly listed, filters function can help users to find their best-match pets. Also, users can contact the shelter directly.
Shelters can give live coverage of available adoption pets. To let people know how is going on in the shelter and how the animals’ situations. Each pet has its separate live room, follow them and know how they going on in anywhere, anytime. The activities work as a Crowdfunding model.
This is not only intended to improve the existing pet adoption process but expand more financial channels for shelters, allowing them to benefit rather than be taken for granted. And arose pet adoption awareness from people through live steam, especially help pets who are considered less adoptable.
While watching a pet live, through an add-to-cart experience, people can donate items for a specific animal from their wishlists. These items range from affordable daily needs, such as pet food, to daily supplies.
what's next?
Plan the design iterative process. I will define PawLove’s plan and align the overall project objectives with the real shelters. Then I will outline any hard requirements. Next analysis and design, focus on the business needs and technical requirements of the pet shelters. Methods can be brainstorm. Finally, create the iteration of the PawLove deliverable. This iteration will be informed by the analysis and design and should work to hit the shelter's ultimate project objectives. The level of detail and time I spend on this iteration will depend on the analysis.
What I have learned?
This application is not intended to improve the existing pet adoption process, but to expand more financial channels for shelters, allowing them to benefit rather than being taken for granted. But this also raises the question of how this could scale: by integrating the solution in existing pet lover communities or platforms? However, as I went through each step, I was able to supplement the logic a bit. It was also the first time I've been in charge of this process on my own, so I could better understand why I needed it.