Pawpup: Adopt & Rescue Pets

A pet adoption app that aims to spread the mission #adoptdontshop by connecting pet adopters, owners, and animal rescue volunteers.

While volunteering at an animal shelter a few years ago, I got to help with on-the-ground operations like feeding and taking care of animals. I noticed how difficult it was to sustain the shelter, given that there was hardly any space to walk between crates and the lack of medical and rescue personnel.

I challenged myself to create a solution to reduce the strain on shelters by increasing the number of adoptions from owners and shelters while educating and increasing awareness around the importance of adoption.

Project Type
Personal side project
Duration
Iterated upon from Jul 2020 till Feb 2021
My Role
Product & UX Design
Outcome
Concept mobile app designed for 3 different users
What is the problem?

Only about 65% of animals at shelters get adopted.

The rest are either returned to their owners or euthanized. Though efforts to increase the awareness around adoption have increased in recent years (through social media, adoption drives and stronger word-of-mouth connections), people continue to buy pets from breeders that use inhumane breeding practices to retain "pure" breeds. This leaves shelters overcrowded and unable to care for animals that are direly in need of a home.

Why does this problem exist?

I conducted qualitative user interviews to unpack and understand the problem from the perspective of the adopter, the owner and the rescue volunteer.

Research methodology: Qualitative user interviews

I conducted 2 explorative user interviews of friends that were active in the adoption community in my city, to understand how adoptions and rescues currently take place. I've summarized the insights gained from these interviews into 3 broad points, each addressing a different stakeholder.

High entry barrier and lack of knowledge of the process

Adopting a pet can seem cumbersome because adopters need information, resources, guidance and assistance in order to gauge shelter authenticity and finally adopt.

Direct adoptions are difficult to arrange and shelters are overcrowded

Directly adopting from owners can reduce strain on shelters. However, direct adoptions pose their own challenges like reaching out to potential adopters and arranging medical treatments.

Rescue volunteers need a lot of resources

Rescue volunteers need many resources like transport, veterinarian services, equipment etc. By having the resources in one place, rescues could be more efficient.

who are the users?

Through my research I identified the key personas that I am designing for.

Sarah, Pet Adopter

Problems:
  • Has lived alone for several years but is starting to feel lonely and seeking companionship.
  • Recently heard about the impact of adopting, but doesn't know how adoptions work.
  • Doesn't know where to look for safe & legitimately sold pets.
Goals:
  • Improve her mental health and overall lifestyle through having a pet to take care of.
  • Find and adopt a pet that suits her lifestyle.
  • Avoid buying from illegitimate breeders.

Leslie, Pet Owner

Problems:
  • Has been taking care of a litter of puppies but does not have the space or resources to keep them.
  • Shelters don't have space to take in more animals.
  • Finding adopters through word-of-mouth and social media is proving to be difficult and time consuming.
Goals:
  • Put the puppies up for adoption as soon as possible.
  • Ensure that the puppies will go to a safe home, conduct a thorough background check.

Ryan, Animal Rescue Volunteer

Problems:
  • Locating, transporting and treating injured or stray animals requires a lot of resources.
  • These resources are often disconnected and he has to arrange each one individually.
  • Needs to have contacts already on hand to procure each resource needed.
Goals:
  • Rescue as many animals as possible.
  • To bring strays and injured animals into the adoption cycle, so that they have a chance to be rehomed and better cared for.
  • Find a way to quicken and streamline the animal rescue process.
problem statement

So, what am I trying to solve?

How might we create a more centralized and direct adoption process that will increase trust, awareness and ease of adoptions? Also, how can we address the needs of different stakeholders?

tackling the problem

I started to work on developing a solution to connect adopters with pet owners directly.

I hypothesized that if we can facilitate direct adoptions through a single app,

  • Adopters could browse hundreds of pet profiles, filtered by location, before selecting the right pet for them.
  • Pet owners wouldn't have to rely solely on word-of-mouth or social media to find potential adopters,
  • In the bigger picture, increased direct adoptions could reduce strain on shelters.

This section of the app makes up the Adopt section.

Adopt a pet

For pet adopters to find a pet, learn more information about it and contact the owner for an inquiry.

Create a pet profile

For pet owners to create a pet profile, add information about their pet and respond to any inquiries from potential adopters.

initial solution & a new direction

The Adopt Section connected pet adopters and owners, but what about rescue volunteers?

From the user interviews, I heard the importance of rescue volunteers in bringing animals into the adoption cycle, so I decided to tackle designing a solution to address their needs.

This section would be called the Rescue section.

Adding the Rescue section shifted the problem I was trying to solve:
Rather than designing just a pet finder engine, I now aimed to create a single platform which would connect all the different stakeholders and standardize the adoption process.

Report an incident

Any user can report an injured or stray animal on the app so that a rescue volunteer can find it.

Rescue volunteer responds to an incident

Rescue volunteers will be notified when an incident is reported and will get directions to the reported location. After the rescue, they can immediately put the animal up for adoption in the Adopt section.

Due to lack of time, I couldn't build out this feature as much as I had wished to, which was to include transport and medical resources directly in the app.

challenges with adding a new feature

While integrating the Rescue section into the existing system (Adopt section), I considered a few questions:

Too many stakeholders?

Adding the Rescue section to the app meant that I was now designing for Pet Adopters, Owners, Rescue Volunteers and any user that wants to report an incident.

Will users get confused?

The scope may be too broad and users might have trouble figuring out which section of the app to use.

Should Adopt & Rescue be separate apps?

Should they be sister apps that interact with each other (like Uber and Uber Driver)? Or should I try to pick one group? If so, the larger group or the group with higher need?

the result

I decided to design both Adopt and Rescue in the same app.

  • I envisioned the Adopt and Rescue section to function synchronously. Animals rescued through the Rescue section of the app could immediately be put up for adoption in the Adopt section. This is why I felt it was important to design Adopt & Rescue in the same app.
  • I wanted to challenge myself to design for multiple users. This is a blue-sky solution and is possible because this was a personal practice project. Ideally, I would conduct more user interviews and tests to validate the solution.
design iterations

Here's how that changed the design of the app:

future scope

Features to add in the future:

Expand on how adopters & owners interact

Instead of just connecting pet adopters and owners, there could be a calendar feature to set up meetings, enabling background checks. Payment features to complete transactions could be added as well.

Further build out the solution for rescue volunteers

Integrating one-click resources like transport, medical assistance and nearby shelters into the app itself could increase the rescue volunteers' effficiency even more.

Conduct more research and testing to validate my solution

Having more insights from each stakeholder would've helped me design better solutions, and helped me make more informed design decisions when I was unsure.

learnings

What I learned from this project

How to design for multiple users

Having to design for different stakeholders while maintaining usability made me feel more prepared for future real-world projects.

The ins and outs of Adobe XD

This project gave me the chance to fully explore Adobe XD, all it's features, and become comfortable with the software.

How to handle project changes

I found myself often rethinking the structure and design of the app, which taught me how to handle these changes at different stages.

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(c) Monica Kawade 2023
I use Hotjar to collect anonymous data about user interactions (e.g. where you click, scroll your mouse, move in between pages). I use these insights to continuously improve the user experience of my site.