Furry Foster
An application to streamline the busywork of animal fostering so foster parents can get back to the business of saving lives.
The Goal
Saving Lives, Reducing Hassle
Millions of animals are still being euthanized in the US every year due to lack of homes. Many of those animals are demographics particularly vulnerable due to poor health or socialization. Foster families are critical to the survival of many of those animals.
Being a foster parent is rewarding, but also really challenging. The time, money, and labor can’t be overstated. Especially when many foster parents are fostering multiple animals at the same time, keeping track of everything can be a real challenge. Many fosters can’t support the number of animals they would like, while others burn out and quit fostering altogether.
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 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 organization and other applications.