Lucky Paws

The decision-making process for the Lucky Paws project was structured to ensure the creation of a user-centered platform. This was the first project where I applied Design Thinking, undertaken in 2022, marking a significant milestone in my design journey. The following is a detailed breakdown of the steps and decisions made throughout the project lifecycle:

1. Empathy Stage

The first step involved developing a deep understanding of the needs, pain points, and motivations of both adopters and animal shelters.

• Research Activities:
• Used the Lean UX Canvas framework to gather insights into the goals, challenges, and behaviors of adopters and shelter staff.
• Gathered data on common obstacles that prevent successful adoptions, such as lack of transparency, poor communication, and cumbersome paperwork.
• Key Insights:
• Many adopters felt overwhelmed by the lack of clear and reliable information about animals.
• Shelters struggled to efficiently manage inquiries and provide timely responses.
• A need for user-friendly technology that caters to a diverse audience, including those with limited technical proficiency, was evident.
• Decisions Made:
• Prioritize creating a transparent system where adopters can access all necessary information about animals in one place.
• Design an intuitive platform interface to accommodate all types of users.

2. Define Stage

This stage involved clearly defining the core problems and objectives of the project.

• Problem Statements:
• “How might we make the adoption process more transparent and accessible for all users?”
• “How can we simplify communication between adopters and shelters?”
• Project Goals:
• Build a platform that connects adopters and shelters with minimal friction.
• Ensure all necessary information about each animal is accessible and easy to understand.
• Provide tools for shelters to manage their adoption processes more efficiently.
• Decisions Made:
• Develop a centralized database for animal profiles, including details such as health history, temperament, and special needs.
• Incorporate messaging and scheduling features to enhance communication between adopters and shelters.

3. Ideation Stage

This stage involved exploring and refining potential solutions to the identified problems.

• Activities:
• Created user stories to define the needs and goals of adopters and shelter staff.
• Designed user flows to map out the journey of adopters, from discovering the platform to completing the adoption process.
• Key Ideas Generated:
• A search and filter system to help users find animals based on specific criteria (e.g., breed, size, age, behavior).
• A user dashboard for adopters to track their adoption journey.
• Educational resources to guide adopters on how to care for their new pets.
• Decisions Made:
• Implement the search and filter system as a core feature.
• Include a user dashboard to enhance the overall adoption experience.
• Allocate resources to develop an educational library within the platform.

4. Prototyping Stage

Prototypes were developed to validate ideas and test assumptions before full-scale development.

• Prototyping Process:
• Developed wireframes and interactive prototypes to visualize the layout and structure of the platform.
• Focused on key tasks such as searching for animals and initiating contact with shelters.
• Key Learnings:
• Users appreciated the simplicity of the interface but requested additional details about animals in the profiles.
• Shelter staff needed a dashboard to easily track and manage adoption requests.
• Decisions Made:
• Add advanced filters to refine search results (e.g., by energy level or compatibility with children).
• Enhance animal profiles with more visual and textual information.
• Design a dedicated shelter dashboard for managing inquiries and tracking adoption progress.

5. Testing Stage

The final stage involved rigorous testing to ensure the platform met user needs and functioned as intended.

• Testing Activities:
• Used a sample group of 12 users to perform usability testing.
• Conducted click tests on the prototype to evaluate task completion times and overall usability.
• Results:
• Overall, users managed to successfully complete the tasks in less than 20 seconds, with the exception of finding notifications and articles from the adopters' perspective.
• The main issues identified were:
• The "articles" tab had a non-descriptive name, being called "support," which was not intuitive for users.
• Notifications were incorporated into a tab in the account section, making them difficult to locate.

Solutions Implemented:

• Renamed the "support" section to "articles" to make its purpose clearer.
• Repositioned the help chatbot to be accessible on every page within the adopter flow.
• Added a red dot above the account section to draw attention to notifications, ensuring users are aware of them.

Conclusion

The decision-making process for Lucky Paws was guided by a commitment to understanding and addressing the real-world challenges of pet adoption. By leveraging Lean UX methodologies, user stories, user flows, and targeted testing, the platform was iteratively refined to meet the needs of adopters and shelters. The result is a user-centered solution that simplifies adoption, enhances transparency, and builds stronger connections between adopters and shelters.