Classic Canines
Case Study: Website Redesign
01. About the Project
Classic Canines is a non-profit organization here in Austin, Texas who specializes in caring and raising awareness for senior dogs until they become adopted. Classic Canine’s purpose is to facilitate donations, adoptions and fosters of senior dogs, but their organization needs more recognition.
The problem: Their website lacks appeal and organization, making it difficult to reach their goals.
My role: UX research, assisting with UI (group project)
My tools: Adobe XD, Adobe Photoshop, Trello, Miro, Classic Canines website, Google Forms, in-person interviews
02. User Research
For our user research, we conducted 5 user interviews and 2 surveys. The first survey focused on a broad network for general discovery, while the second focused on a target group of people for details.
Interviews
Most people are very willing to adopt a dog based on how dogs make them feel
Most users donated to their local shelters and are biased towards the shelter they adopted their dog from
People weren’t aware of adopting senior dogs when wanting to adopt a dog from a shelter, but wouldn’t be opposed to it
1st Survey
2nd Survey
However, 100% of those surveyed agreed that the best way a shelter can support foster homes is by covering medical expenses and care.
Meet the Personas!
Annie the Adopter
Goals: finally gets to do her part and rescue her own dog!
Doesn’t feel comfortable committing to a puppy, but loves the idea of a senior dog.
Concerns: unpredictable health issues and shorter lifespans that come with senior dogs
Donna the Donor
Goals: wants to enjoy the experience of giving money
Loves Virtual Sponsor
Her donation provides MUCH needed relief:
Medical bills
Dog Training expenses
Food/Supply expenses
Francisco the Foster
Goals: help dogs find as many forever homes as possible
Thinks fostering is the right thing to do
Concerns: the experience of fostering a dog can be quite unpredictable
03. Brainstorming & Ideation
After our research, we concluded that insufficient information was the main reason for senior dogs not getting enough attention; we needed to establish a way to educate the public about senior dogs and to steer them away from the negative perception.
Value Proposition
Our value proposition shows opportunities for Classic Canines to help their users
Journey Maps
Annie the Adopter & Lady
The journey map shows both Annie and Lady’s journeys through the fostering process until adoption
Donna the Donor & Bubba
This journey map shows both Donna and Bubba’s journeys through the virtual sponsor program—a new feature that Classic Canines can offer
Francisco the Foster & Simba
This journey map shows Francisco and Bubba’s journeys through the fostering process
04. Prototyping & Testing
During our prototyping phase, we started by taking a look at the current sitemap and how to better improve it. From there, we proceeded with a new user flow, ideation sketching, and working on our low-fidelity prototype to test
Current Website
This is Classic Canine’s current website. As you can see, it is in much need of improvement. But, we used it to help identify the problems and prioritize features to form a solution
Sitemap
One of the main problems with the old site navigation was the lack of information and organization.
Once we implemented the changes, users could now easily navigate finding the information they need
Sketches
Low-Fidelity Prototype
We knew we wanted to create pages for each feature to highlight why the organization is so great. Separating things like Who We Are, Adopting, Fostering, etc. into their own pages, our users would understand why Classic Canines is such an important organization.
User Testing
We tasked users to navigate through the website, learn more about who the organization is, and learn more about the dogs who need foster/adoption.
Key takeaways:
Website is clean, simple, and easy to navigate
Need to fix minor details about page labels and layout of information
Overall very cohesive and intuitive
05. High-Fidelity Prototypes
Style Guide
When it came to the style guide, we mostly pulled inspiration from the logo. We wanted to keep the theme happy and vibrant, since saving a dog is a very happy experience
High-fidelity Prototypes
We took the key takeaways from our user tests to create a high fidelity prototype that was better suited for our users. We wanted the website to stay simple but playful, so we used a lot of imagery and bright colors while still achieving a minimal look and feel
The website had to:
Encourage quick, easy and recurring donations through promotions, quick buttons, & virtual sponsoring
Educate & spread awareness through pages for foster & adoption info, FAQ’s
Increase Adoptions through dog profiles, adoption quiz, and friendly look/feel
Future Opportunities:
Incorporate the Classic Canine’s donation QR Code via squareup.com
Stakeholder expressed interest in upgrading to higher quality dog photos. This could be utilized both as a promotional event and build stock photography for their online presence
Continue to grow relationship with stakeholder and product owner to understand further needs or content
Fully develop dog and owner personality quiz
For a more complete user experience, we would recommend fundraising events similar to other shelters. Serves dual purpose as a celebration of hard working volunteers and increase charitable giving