Dog Adoption Concept

Pawsible is a made up dog adoption online database pairing homeless dogs to people based on their lifestyle. The platform aims at improving the adoption process and finding every dog a home.

My role:

UX Designer from research, concept validation and high fidelity designs

The Challenge

Problem statement

In my initial research I found that 3.9 million dogs enter U.S. shelters every year.

Dog owners need a way to successfully find a dog that fits their lifestyle because they want to provide their dog with the best life.

Hypothesis

I believe that by successfully matching dog owners lifestyle with dog’s personality we can increase the amount of dogs being adopted and reduce the amount of dogs that are abandoned or given up to shelters.

The Research

Comparative analysis

I compared features against top dog adoption websites to determine strengths and weaknesses of each one. This helped me to understand which key features I needed to include. I also found a few opportunities for improvements:

  • Care and training resources were text heavy, hard to consume and not easy to search or navigate through.

  • Matching quizzes didn’t effectively match dogs based on the owners lifestyle, but based on preferences.

User Interviews

Who was interviewed

Total of 8 people: 5 current dog owners, 2 looking for a dog, and 1 who gave up a dog


I interviewed users about their process of finding a dog, how they trained them and any other difficulties they had. Based on the insights I sorted and organized the data to find common patterns. Then used that information to define my user personas.

Key insights
  • People usually have specific preferences in mind when looking for a dog
  • Current dog owners said they weren’t prepared by the amount of attention and care their dog would need until after they brought them home
  • Sympathetic to their dog’s happiness and needs, wants to provide the best life for their dog
  • Difficult to sort through many websites for reliable training resources
Affinity map:
User personas:

The Solution

Now
  • Easy to find resources for care and training
  • Quiz successfully matching dogs with owners lifestyle
  • Adopting process information for novice dog adopters
  • High quality photos to attract adopters to the site
  • Detailed dog profile to get a sense of their personalities
Next
  • Detailed application form so adopters can submit online
  • Resources for specific breeds and thier characteristics
Later
  • Ability for owners to create a profile for their dog
  • Ability to search vets & specialty vets in your area
  • Shelter dashboard to post/track listings & applications
User flow

The solution goes beyond successfully matching owners with dogs, but to become a resource for after they bring their dog home.

Paper prototype

Based on my user flow and feature prioritization matrix I sketched out key screens for the website.

Wireframes

Final designs

The Conclusion

Next steps

After the initial release I would continue to get feedback on the product and watch its performance. As more feedback comes in, I would polish the product to fix any bugs or usability issues. Then determine which problem I would tackle next by revisiting my feature prioritization matrix, conduct research, and continue to test and iterate.

See next case study
Alibaba.com Bulk Upload Tool