akanksha mishra
Stray Pawsitive
An Animal Rescue, Rehabilitation and Adoption App.
The Problem
Stray animals are often neglected and left to fend for themselves, with limited help available. In remote areas and small towns, the challenges are even greater due to the lack of resources and expertise required to rescue and care for these animals, including veterinary hospitals and doctors.
The Goal
Creating an app which allows users to rescue, adopt, rehabilitate stray animals and catering to the user needs on the basis of the problems, analyzing the patterns in problems faced to create a viable app.
Through user interviews and empathy mapping, I identified a common challenge among target users: they struggle to rescue animals due to limited funds, lack of accessible hospitals, and difficulties in taking timely action. This makes their goal of saving and caring for pets, fosters, and street animals a daunting and often overwhelming task.
Understanding the User
Personas
Name : Surena
Occupation :
Student
Age : 25
“I want all the animals in my care to live happy, healthy and full lives.”
About
Surena is a student at a university. She lives in a remote place and takes care of the street animals in her area, be it cows, dogs or cats. She even has pets at home but the veterinary hospital closest to her location is 3 hours away so she finds it difficult to provide necessary treatment to her street animals or even her own pet. She feels disheartened that she cannot take care of all the animals that she looks after due to the lack of basic facilities and timely care and treatment in case of emergencies.
Qualities
Animal lover
Takes care of street animals
Compassionate
Core needs
Animal care helpline
Adoption facilities for animals
Online consultation for animals
Online medicine delivery
House visits
Neuter/ Spay Sponsors
Goals
Taking care of street animals in her area efficiently
Providing the animals under her care with the basic needs and timely medical intervention
Frustrations
Lack of basic facilites for animal care in her area
Difficulty in taking care of all the animals by herself
Name : Karan
Occupation : Rescue worker
Age : 45
Goals
Attending to every animal distress call
Taking care of animals at his NGO
“I am a rescuer not only at work, but also at home. That’s why I want to do my best to become a voice for the voiceless.”
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Frustrations
Not being able to attend to every case
Being overburdened and overworked due to the lack of volunteers and manpower
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About
Karan is an NGO worker at an animal rescue NGO in a big city. He works to help stray animals like cows, dogs, donkeys, cats, etc who are in distress by attending to calls made by concerned civilans. He attends to several cases every day but feels overburdened at the end of the day on not being able to attend to every individual case due to the volume of calls and the comparitively lesser number of NGO volunteers.
Qualities
Rescues street animals in distress
Compassionate
Core needs
Adoption of stray animals
Rescue wait list
Vet on call
Online Rescuers community
Value Proposition
Accessibility
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Remote access online
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Book appointment
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Vet house visit
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Toll Free Animal helpline
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Order Medicines online
Insightful
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Report Animal cruelty
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Sponsor surgery
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Adoption
Community
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Rescuer's community Tab
Competitor Research
I analyzed some existing products on the market with the same target users and offering to come up with the gaps that need to be bridged and improved upon to enhance the user experience.
Key Competitors
Let it Wag
Friendicoes
Voice for voice
People for animals
Strengths
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Insightful features such as missing animal bulletins, sponsoring spay and neuter surgeries, fundraising, adoption, foster homes, physical animal shelters, animal ambulance
Opportunities
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Online remote consultation
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Better community engagement for animal lovers and rescuers
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Incentives provided on the app for being involved in rescues
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Engaging content
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Senstitization campaigns
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Animal helpline that connects to nearby vets/rescues based on location
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Feature to order medicines online
Weaknesses
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Most competitors don’t have an app and are difficult to be contacted due to the volume of calls placed everyday due to which they cannot attend to every single call.
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Let it wag has an app for real time rescuing but no option for online consultation with veterinary doctors.
Threats​
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Lack of consumer awareness
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Growing apprehension and phobia towards stray animals
Information Architecture
Storyboarding
Macro Storyboard
Micro Storyboard
Digital Wireframes
Login Screens
Remote Consultation
Appointment Screens
Community Screens
Prototyping and Testing
Using the lo-fi digital wireframes to create a low-fi prototype, I conducted a usability study to find out about the possible areas of user flow disruption, the effectiveness of the app and the time taken to complete tasks to asses its efficacy.
Usability Study
I conducted a usability study on a pool of 6 participants to test the efficacy of app.
The usability study is aimed at finding out the user experience of the app while using
some of the key features : Remote consultation, Appointment booking, Community and rescue.
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Unmoderated usability study
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Location: Remote, India
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Length: Each session will last 5 to 10 minutes, based on a list of prompts
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Animal lovers and pet owners
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Age : 18-60
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3 Females, 3 males
Affinity Diagramming and Identifying insights
After affinity diagramming, it was clear which features were hard to access, where the users felt stuck, and what more could be added to make the user experience more satisfying.
Card Sorting
Participant felt confused completing tasks which were not directly on the main screen
Navigation
One menu listing
all features seems to be missing
Some navigation
points are confusing and misleading
Similar set of features should be combined or streamlined to improve navigation
Features
"Features should not clash and should be clearly demarcated"
"There should be a common entry point for the features"
Labels
Participants felt that every menu should have a description
"Some menu options are ambiguous"
Iteration
Priority 0
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, Insight : Users need a clearly demarcated menu with all additional features for easy access
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Theme : For most users, it’s not immediately clear which features are in user and which features are in menu options
Theme : Not everyone is easily able to navigate through options which are not immediately accessible
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, Insight : Users need a common access point with easily distinguishable features for ease of access clear navigation
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Community tab taking excess space on the home screen
Addition of Carousel displaying extra features
Priority 1
Theme : View report option is not immediately accessible for most users
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, Insight : Users need view report option separately
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Design System
Going Further
Partner with local animal shelters and rescue groups: To increase the impact of Stray Pawsitive, to reach a broader audience and provide more opportunities for pet adoptions.
Conduct further user testing and implement more features to make the app more accessible and user friendly