Linking Hearts to Homes with PAWsitive Impact
PAWsitive Impact is an social cause app that is aimed for animal rescues and shelters along with animal lovers that would like to volunteer and donate.
Project Details
My Role
UX Researcher, Visual Designer, & Interaction Designer
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
The Problem Space
PAWsitive Impact is an social cause app that is aimed for animal rescues and shelters along with animal lovers that would like to volunteer and donate.
Current Solutions
GiveCloud
QGiv
Bloomberg
Discover
User Research
Empathy Mapping
User Persona
Scope
March 2024 - November 2024
Methods
User Research, Competitive Analysis, Heuristic Analysis, Information Architecture, Visual Design
Competitive analysis revealed that GiveCloud, QGiv and Bloomberg are common website integrations that rescues use to manage their donations through their site.
Heuristic analysis revealed that these popular options succeed at providing rescues and shelters with donation management, but lack anything volunteer related and the interface is only for the rescue side. There was a lack of usability for a ‘regular animal lover” that wants to help. This is where PAWsitive Impact comes into play.
User interviews played a vital role in determining what motivates users (that are animal lovers and rescue workers). Five participants were interviewed and asked questions that helped me understand the process they have used to donate to shelters and rescues alike. There was a lack of anything centralized as the users had to go through the shelter’s website or personal social media page. This helped me see the overall lack of a centralized space.
Develop
The user persona served as a reference point throughout the process. It combined the needs and wants of all the participants interviewed into one and ensured those needs remained the top priority.
How might we…?
With the help of the Empathy Map and User Persona, I created three questions to help me stay focused on the needs of the user as I progressed toward the design of my prototype.
How might we make the process of donating to animal shelters easier?
How might we streamline shelter donations?
How might we increase the number of donors an animal shelter or rescue gets?
The goal of PAWsitive Impact was to address these questions and be a solution.
User Flows
With a user flow, I had a better understanding of how my designs would appear before I had even begun sketching. The Information Architecture was created at this stage and helped organize what see what screens would be needed in order to create the “animal lover” side to the app.
User flow would need to include:
An account creation that had the step-by-step process for both animal lover and rescue accounts (with the animal lover one being able to be finished)
A profile for the animal lover
A feed for the user to scroll through
We ended up with a following and discover option
A map for rescues to be able to be discovered
A card/payment set up for donations
A rescue profile
A messaging area to continue to build a community
Develop
User Flows
With a user flow, I had a better understanding of how my designs would appear before I had even begun sketching. The Information Architecture was created at this stage and helped organize what see what screens would be needed in order to create the “animal lover” side to the app.
User flow would need to include:
An account creation that had the step-by-step process for both animal lover and rescue accounts (with the animal lover one being able to be finished)
A profile for the animal lover
A feed for the user to scroll through
We ended up with a following and discover option
A map for rescues to be able to be discovered
A card/payment set up for donations
A rescue profile
A messaging area to continue to build a community
Sketches
With the user flows, I created low fidelity sketches that answered the “How might we” questions. These designs were created with the needs of the user in mind and what came out of the user flows.
Brand
The PAWsitive Impact logo was created to have a lot of personality to stand against the minimal logo trend going on currently. “Linking hearts to homes” is the tagline for the brand as it perfectly describes the mission.
Color Palette
The color palette was meant to be bold and eye-catching to go along with the bold logo. The color scheme helped keep the application fun and engaging.
Typography
Iconography
UI Elements
Photography
The bold and bright photography goes along with the brand as I wanted the photography to be fun and engaging as many rescue tactics is using sad dogs and cats. With the users being so passionate about their animals I wanted to bring more joy than sadness with the imagery.
High Fidelity Mockups
With the research and branding PAWsitive Impact was ready to come to life with high-fidelity mockups for the usability testing.
Usability Testing
First Round Testing Findings
Overall the first round of testing went well and revealed some key findings:
Overall positive reception on the brand and logo
positive, gives hope, eye catching
A couple of places where the app didn’t connect (missing location services, CTAs, etc)
Overall easy to use and navigate
Second Round Testing Findings
Testing went well and there were no links missing
Had to clarify that the side of the app is designed is the “animal lover” side and not the “rescue” side
With this the thought of having to have an email feature that sends the rescue a verification email upon applying would need to be implemented
Reflection
The UX side of this project was grueling and long, but so important to get into the mind of a potential user and address possible concerns in order to design and create the best possible product.
At heart, I am a designer. The UI side of this project was the most run and rewarding part. After all of the research, it was amazing seeing the app come to life in Figma. The iteration process was a great exercise that allowed me to find gaps in the app where more information needed to be added and problems addressed.
This project reaffirmed the passion for UX/UI design that I have continued to develop as I continue this course and bootcamp.