The Animal Rescue Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving endangered animals and encouraging humans to live in harmony with them. ARA needs a tool for people who want to help abandoned, abused and endangered animals and get involved in activities for them. ARA's primary target users are college students and adults who want to help animals.
July 2023 to August 2023
UX designer, UX researcher leading the App and responsive website design from conception to delivery.
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
It’s estimated that every year, 10 million animals die from abuse in just the United States alone, over 6.3 million dogs and cats, and other household pets are surrendered to animal shelters, and most people are not aware of the fact that these tragedies are happening behind the growth of the pet market.
Design an app that aims to create an environment in which we can cherish and love companion animals as living beings like us, not as commodities, but as companions in our lives, will give opportunities to people who want to help animals.
• Through this research interview, I tried to incorporate the voices of the participants who wanted to help animals who were abandoned and hurt and needed our help into the design as much as possible. Most of the participants showed a lot of empathy for the reality of suffering companion animals and mourned together, and this research feedback clearly showed that promoting user convenience and interest by increasing intuitiveness, usability and accessibility is just as important as other applications.
An audit of a few competitor’s products provided direction on gaps and opportunities to address with the Animal Rescue
Link for the spreadsheet
I did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was specifically on real-time rescue reports with location information, easy booking for adoption, making a focal point to attract the user, the method of communication between users and ARA, and assistive features.
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the Animal Rescue Association app. These designs focused on offering features to help animals and encouraging users to get involved in various campaigns for animals.
• To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype that connected the user flow for sending rescue request and easy adoption process.
Unmoderated usability study
United states, remote
5 participants
20-30minutes
People wished for a more intuitive layout with larger icons and images.
People wanted to see their location in real time and send an accurate rescue request.
People wanted to see the information about adoption costs in advance.
Based on the insights from the usability studies, I applied design changes like providing distinct focal points with hero image and typography, adjusted the size of icons and images to be larger in terms of usability and accessibility.
Added a navigator that allows people to see where they are in real time while sending rescue requests for animals in need.
Additionally, guidance on the entire process of adoption and adoption costs was reflected in the design for users.
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.
Ensure visibility within the app by allowing the size and thickness of the text that composes the menu to be adjusted, ensuring accessibility for a variety of users.
Providesa function to reduce transparency or increase contrast, as well as a colorfilter function and a screen reader function, considering the accessibility ofall users, including users with visual impairments.
Securing ease of access for users of various languages by allowing various languages to be added
With the app designs completed, I started work on designing the responsive website. I used the ARA’s sitemap to guide the organizational structure of each screen’s design to ensure a cohesive and consistent experience across devices.
The design for screen size variation included mobile, tablet, and desktop. I optimized the designs to fit specific user needs of each device and screen size.
Participants said they would be happy to use the usefulness of this app to help animals in need around them, and that they wanted to spread this widely around them so that more people could realize their love for animals with this app.
While experiencing design to contribute to our society, I was able to think and learn about design that meets public standards, from the basic atmosphere to detailed design, and this time, it was an opportunity to learn once again how important user-centered thinking and user-centered design are.
Conduct more rounds of usability studies for the accessibility and detail of content, expanding the criteria in terms of communication between the community and users.
Based on the feedback obtained through additional usability studies, we conduct a design iteration process to make the design more attractive and solve the user's pain points.
In collaboration with the community, promote the importance of respecting life, and at the same time publicize the usefulness of the ARA's app and encourage participation.