The flooding of stray animals in cities in China has caused s series of problems. How to alleviate this damages it caused to social and natural environment in a humane way?
To create a social platform for improving pet adoption process. This animal adoption communication application featuring convenient functions encourages people to adopt animals instead of buying them.
The number of stray dogs and cats has been increasing rapidly. Their current living condition is extremely awful in China both due to natural and human factors. The statistical data of street dogs in large cities of China like Beijing and Shanghai has been roughly analyzed, but the number of cats remains unavailable and unclear. (Overall, the data are not reliable because it’s fluctuating all the time.) The amount of stray animals, especially cats, has been surging at high speed. The main reasons of it are the high rate of people abandoning their pets and the astonishing speed of cat’s fertility.
Througn desktop research, I reached out to related NGOs and individuals to understand how do they help those animals and what problems they are facing.
To gain better understanding of people engaged into the adoption process,
I visited two sited related to pet adoption, and conducted surveys to people there.
So, with the understanding of current adoption,
how could I improve pet adoption process?
14 people were interviewed altogether. Questionnaires are in different design for three types of people.
For finding the exact problem in the process of the adoption, I draw out the user journeys for both rescuer’s and adopter’s perspectives.
Before defining the problem, we as a team conducted usability test for the current site and further conducted interviews to collect both qualitative in order to map out the pain points.
To create an application for connecting Rescuers, adopters and potential adopters. The potentials adopters (or other pet lovers) are identified as fosterers in the app.This platform provides easy-to-use services with several functions fulfill the needs of three user sides.
I sketched out the basic structure of the journey flow.
I sketched the user interface flow to show different main functions for rescuers, adopters and fosterers.
I made lo-fi prototypes for user testing. I set the tasks for both rescuers, adopters and fosterers to fulfill during the test.
Problem 1 The main purposes of the two target users (adopter and fosterer) to use the application is different. It is better to separate them when signing up for them to identify their status on the platform.
Problem 2 The foster may feel confused about their role. How can they change their status to adopter if they want to adopt a pet finally?
Problem 3 Both users and their pets have the profile pages. It looks confused and not clear if their look and feel are similar.
Aiming at the problem reflected during testing process, the main user side's structure has been adjusted and separated into two.
The functions for adopter and temporary keeper have been separated in Q&A by selecting their purposes. Each kind of user sides has its own target functions.
The information architecture explains the user flow structure.
The wireframe show the Flow of the design.
Register
Through registering for the account, three user sides will learn about their role and functions in the onboarding process.
3 User Sides
Users are divided into three sides, which are rescuer, adopter and fosterer. Their functions and roles within the app are different from each others.
Profile for Pets
Each strays will have a profile page.
Certification
Users will be required to complete certification once they decide to process adopting or fostering. It can guarantee the safety for both pets and user’s information.
Request fostering
There will be application
process for fosterers and
adopter to complete.
The storyboard tells the story about how does Finn, a fosterer, finally adopts Titi using HiPaw .
