Background
There has been an increase in the number of stray animals in my country. The lack of animal control has had a huge impact on that. There are very few pet shelters (I can count them on one hand) and all of them are privately funded. That means that they need all the support they can get to be able to continue helping animals. With that said, it is currently a problem to actually find proper information about the shelters and what they require, which makes it very hard for people to donate and/or volunteer. So I decided to change that through this app.
Personal Objectives
- Take full ownership of the various roles involved in designing a product (user researcher, user experience designer, product designer)
- Create an application that will help connect pet shelters to potential donors
Research
Before setting any goals for the app, I decided to conduct an impromptu interview, on the streets, to help me get an understanding on what would benefit people the most.
The questions I asked were:
1.Are you an animal lover?
2.Do you think there is a stray animals problem in our country?
3.Did you know there are pet shelters in our country?
4.Would you be willing to donate and/or volunteer?
This are the results I got based on the answers of 50 random people that I interviewed,
over the course of 3 days (the statistic is based on the yes response):
As you can see, most of the people I interviewed did not know that there are actual pet shelters in our country, but after they found out, they were more than willing to donate and/or volunteer.
I then decided to reach out to some pet shelters as well and see what issues they face when promoting their fundraisers.
Based on their answers I concluded that:
- They have a hard time reaching a larger community, because of lack of social media presence.
4 out of 5 shelters in our country don’t have a website but have a Facebook page. 1 shelter doesn’t have a social media presence at all, with only a mention on google maps.
2 out of 4 update their page regularly. The other 2 update on an irregular schedule.
None of the shelters have an app.
- All of the shelters are located outside of cities and because of our country’s lack of transportation infrastructure, most of them are unreachable without a car. That demotivates a lot of people that want to donate in person (by bringing pet food, pet toys etc)
To finish off my research, I read about the psychology of donating.
According to Joshua Greene:
“We weren’t designed for impartial beneficence; we weren’t designed to care about everybody equally. Our social emotions really evolved for social teamwork — I give you food when your hunting doesn’t go well, and you do the same for me — and we survive that way”
Analysis showed that: “The average donor retention rate is around 40% to 45%, which means that if 100 donors give to your organization each year, only about 40 of those donors will give again the following year. To retain donors one might offer recurring gift options, thank donors, share impact stories, set up donor accounts, offer different ways to give etc.”
With all these data on paper, I set out to create the app.
User Persona
Goals
Based on my research, I laid out a few goals for the app:
- I want users to have quick access to information about the shelters
- I want users to be able to track their donations and see the results of it
- I want users to be able to connect with each other through the app, creating a network
- I want users to be able to get “rewards” for their donations, to encourage them and to promote the app
Problems
Starting off, I faced two problems:
1.Coming up with a good reward system for the donors
2.Keeping everything transparent
Solutions
1.The reward system was a challenge.
The first idea was to add mini-game to the app or game-fy the process. The users would pay for the perks in the game and then choose a fundraiser to send the donation to, with the money accumulated in their account.
I quickly realised that adding a mini-game would actually take away from the app’s main objective: connect pet shelters to potential donors. The main feature would become the mini-game, instead of donation. Also, the mini-game would have to be up to standarts, to keep users entertained enough to continue using the game. In the grand scheme of things, most donors would prefer donating right away, especially those who live a busy life.
A mini-game as such, would serve well on its own. A pet shelter game where you can pay for various perks and see the shelter flourish, while your money also help real pet shelters flourish.
Instead, I opted for a more ambitious approach. I added an easy coupon redeeming system into the app. If, assuming, various companies would be willing to sponsor pet shelters, then the donors would get coupons after reaching a certain amount of money that they donated. (Ex: Get or choose a coupon after every 100 euros donated)
2.To keep everything transparent, I decided right away on three things:
- The app needs a notification board to keep users updated on what is going on in the shelters.
- Full profile pages for the shelters, containing all the information available so they can be easily contacted or reached
- A discussion board where people can build a network and verify information.
Task Flows 
1.Donation task flow
2.Shelter profile task flow
UI KIT
For the UI of the app I went for shades of blue, red and yellow, which are also the colors of our country’s flag. I wanted the app to feel familiar so I thought the colors will add to that.
The logo is a shortened version of the words Pet Owner (PO), and cat ears, which are often associated with cuteness and innocence.
Testing
The success rate while testing was 90% or higher.
I had two complaints from testers:
- The event tab felt incomplete as a pop-up
SOLUTION: add an events page that includes a full description and other details.
- Most testers noted that even though the app was trying to connect people with shelters it didn’t have a share button included, so users could share news directly onto their social pages.
SOLUTION: add a share button for fundraisers, notifications and events.
Conclusions
It is an ambitious project that I plan to push forward in hopes that it will improve the stray animals problem in our country, but for now, the lesson I learned is that Big challenges require small steps!
While working on this project I once again confirmed how important it is nowadays to have an online presence. Online communication serves as a basis for any successful campaign and fundraiser. I also learned that aside from interviews and statistics, actual human psychology can help a lot in finding UX solutions.