Furry Foster
Millions of pets are euthanized every year. Foster families are critical to minimizing the loss of life, but fostering is a big commitment. Animals have a variety of different needs, and keeping track of their care can be taxing. Fosters rely on tools like paper, spreadsheets, and a handful of clunky applications to keep track. Those tools are cumbersome, costing fosters sometimes hours a week on documentation. I designed a solution based on three different studies that would streamline the documentation process and help fosters get back to saving lives.
My Role
I designed and researched a solution for the cumbersome and time-consuming animal data tracking process.
Strategy
I reached out to different fostering groups, shelters, and rescues to recruit a variety of cat fosters. I wanted to learn about the people who liked to foster, what types of cats they fostered, and the different needs they each had.
Execution
I conducted a competitive analysis of existing applications. I then interviewed 6 different fosters across the US for their different perspectives and designed a simple prototype. I conducted two rounds of usability tests with 5 participants each to determine the usability of my design.
My Role: UX Researcher/Designer
Tasks: Recruitment, User Research, Analysis
Tools: Facebook, Teams, Mockplus, Post-its, paper prototype, Excel
Results
I created a fully interactive prototype that seems to meet the core needs of most fosters, identified a missing function to include, and determined a couple additional studies to conduct to further polish the final design.
The Challenge
Limitations
I didn’t have access to sophisticated tools like research applications or non-profit networks. I would have to rely on free tools and connect to whatever communities I could to find participants. Shelters were unable to connect me to fosters, so I would need to find participants through social media groups and the one work colleague I knew who fostered.
The Kickoff
A Revelation
I discovered very quickly that I knew very little about fostering cats besides infants. Many other foster families fostered seniors, sick or injured cats, or feral animals. Everyone had their own specialty. Fosters also spanned from high school students to retirees to professionals fostering in their home offices. Each type of foster and each specialty came with their own list of requirements.
Wireframe
Insights
Good to Better
While the original design seemed pretty intuitive, there were a few areas of organization and terminology that participants struggled with in the first round of testing.
I also realized I hadn’t included socialization. Since adoptability is dependent not only on animal health, but interaction, that was a key missing piece.
On testing the redesign, participants were able to find the correct locations on average 30 seconds faster per task and felt much more comfortable with the flow.
Redesign
Results
Reducing the Grunt work
I successfully design an app that covered almost every fostering demographic’s needs. The newest design allows for absolute granularity in all health and socialization metrics while also increasing findability. I also included features like calendar and contacts that would allow users to keep all fostering information in one place.
If I am able to partner with a developer or charity to get this made, I would want to conduct additional tree tests or card sorts to improve organization and terminology. But even without that, participants agreed that the existing design would be a dramatic improvement over their existing options.
