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1.1 Understand - User Research

I wanted to understand the hardship experienced by pet owners, potential pet owners and shelters to create a meaningful solution for them.

🐥 Therefore, I conducted a secondary Research on existing user research of pet adoption in the United States, and here are what I found.

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🐤 Wrapping up these findings and organizing them into challenges following an adoption timeline:

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1.2 Understand - Identify Problems + Goals

‍The Problem:

Pet adopters find it hard to adopt well-matched pets due to a unclear + complicated adoption process, and a poorly-supported post-adoption pet care.

The goal:

Design a platform that serves as a bridge between adopters and shelters, providing clear understanding of pet profiles and potential match, also easy adoption process and post adoption support.

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2.1 Analyze - Competitor Analysis

To design an intuitive pet adoption platform, I analyzed key competitors to identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.

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Key Takeaways from Competitor Analysis:

1. Ensure real-time updates to prevent outdated listings.
2. Enhance pet profiles with detailed info, photos, and videos.
3. Integrate educational resources on pet care and post-adoption support.
4. Strengthen partnerships with shelters for a wider adoption network.

By addressing these gaps, my platform should create a more transparent, user-friendly adoption experience that increases successful pet placements.

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2.2 Analyze - Pain Points

Uncovering the biggest challenges adopters face at different stages of the process from the previous findings.

‍Finding:

✔ Pre-Adoption:

• Lack of pet adoption education
• Fear of financial & emotional commitment
• Difficulty connecting with shelters

✔ Adoption Process:

• Limited understanding of pet needs
• Uncertainty in finding a good match
• Strict and lengthy adoption procedures

✔ Post-Adoption:

• Lack of financial & behavioral support

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Turning Pain Points into Opportunities

After identifying key pain points in the pet adoption journey, I focused on transforming these challenges into meaningful solutions that enhance user experience and adoption success.

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Here is the summary of transformation:

‍Pre-Adoption:

- Pain Point: Lack of education, fear of commitment, and difficulty connecting with shelters.
💡 Opportunity: Provide educational resources on pet adoption and care, and partner with multiple shelters to create a unified, accessible database.

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‍Adoption Process:

- Pain Point: Users struggle with pet compatibility, unclear profiles, and lengthy processes.
💡 Opportunity: Introduce a match test for better pet compatibility, intuitive pet profiles, and a comparison feature to help adopters make informed decisions faster.

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‍Post-Adoption:

- Pain Point: Lack of financial and behavioral support after adoption.
💡 Opportunity: Build community support for pet care, compile guides and resources to save adopters research time, and foster an engaging space for adopters to share experiences.

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By tackling these pain points with educational tools, streamlined adoption workflows, and post-adoption support, the platform ensures a smoother, more confident adoption journey for every pet and adopter.

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2.3 Analyze - Simple Persona + Journey Mapping

To better understand the adopter experience, I created two simple personas representing different types of users: Steve and Kim. After defining these personas, I developed a journey map outlining their adoption process online. This helped highlight key friction points, such as lack of education, difficulty finding a good match, and missing post-adoption support.

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By mapping these pain points, I was able to design solutions that simplify adoption, improve pet-matching accuracy, and provide long-term support for adopters.

Brainstorm Solutions

I reviewed the opportunities found from my analyze phase and brainstormed about how to integrate them into the website based on what the original design already had. The freshen up site should bring adopters a smoother user experience.

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Pre-Adoption

Provide educational resources on pet adoption, pet care and related info

Partner with as many shelters as possible to give users a unified database

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The Adoption

Match test helping searching for better match

Easy and intuitive pet profiles

Comparison between pets to help with a more informed decision

Simplified adoption process to save time

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Post-Adoption

Community support for pet care

Gathered resources to save adopter’s time on research

Provide an engaging vibe for adopters to also share their experience

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Add-ons for Homepage + Pet Profile

While doing secondary research, I found the heartbreaking facts about how many animals getting euthanized because of overcrowded shelters. Meanwhile, there’re still lots of pets being returned to shelters after adoption. I wanted to bring more attention to those strayed (and not so pretty), abandoned and surrendered animals. They deserve a warm home just like any other animals who are younger and more popular.

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Old Design Review

‍As part of my design refinement process, I conducted a review of my original mockups (July 2023) to identify areas for improvement in features, UI, and UX.

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Key Findings & Changes

‍Features

🔹 Old Design: Included essential features like Match Test, Pet Comparison, and Multi-Pet Inquiry.
🔹 New Design: Kept and refined these features while adding a Resource & Community section to better support adopters.

‍UI Improvements

🔹 Old Design: Used a dark background with small font sizes, which impacted readability.
🔹 New Design: Redesigned the UI with a cleaner, friendlier aesthetic and refined branding for better accessibility.

‍UX Enhancements

🔹 Old Design: Lacked key information on the home page and had suboptimal information architecture (IA).
🔹 New Design: Redesigned IA for each page and restructured the homepage to present information more effectively.

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By iterating on feature usability, UI aesthetics, and information flow, I ensured the new design enhances adoption experiences through clarity, accessibility, and engagement!

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User Flow, Site Map

As part of the design iteration, I revisited both the user flow and site map to improve navigation, clarity, and overall usability.

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Old user flow

Users followed a linear process with limited flexibility in browsing pets, comparing options, and completing adoption steps.

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Key updates on user flow

‍Highlighted different routes towards the same goal:sending inquiry to shelters/source of adoption.

Added actions leading to each page.

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Old site map

The navigation structure was cluttered, and key adoption steps were not easily accessible.

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Key updates on site map

Removed some features that don’t play significant roles in solving the mentioned problem in this current project.

Cut some information to keep the map clean and easy to understand.

Only keep the most important feature pages.

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