Fosters First

Project Overview

With approximately 6.5 million companion animals entering U.S. animal shelters each year there are not enough facilities to house them all.

• Brick-and-mortar animal shelters in the US: 3,500

• Rescue groups and animal sanctuaries in North America: 10,000

• Dogs and cats euthanized each day day: 2,000

Fosters are volunteers who help animals decompress from a stressful shelter environment, heal from illness or injury, work on behavior training, and ultimately prepare them for a home life.

Although fostering is a crucial part of animal rescue, the people that open up their homes may not always feel supported. A new animal often comes with many questions and uncertainties, and with rescue and shelter staff and volunteers already managing various responsibilities, communication between fosters and organizations can sometimes be a point of friction. Additionally, while animal fostering is often described as “rewarding”, with factors such as knowing little of the animal’s history, managing the stress an animal in a new environment, and the disruption of the foster’s daily routine, the experience itself can feel isolating and exhausting.

Fosters First streamlines the communication between fosters and organizations and enables them to share real time data on their animals.

It provides fosters the support they need and enables them to problem solve without having to tie up resources in the organization with which they are fostering. It also provides the opportunity for community building which is critical to the organization, its fosters and its animals.

My Role

As a UX designer, I created the overall user flow and designed the screens for Orientation, Animal Profile, Fosters Needed, and Resources. I contributed to Research by writing surveys and interviews. I also took the lead as Project Manager, keeping our team on track with our project timeline, keeping files and artifacts organized, and managing all communication and schedules with participants. 

Process Overview

We followed the user centered design process to explore the experience of fostering and the relationships between rescue or shelter, foster pet parents and animal. We used our research to inform design solutions, tested these through concept and usability testing and then developed a final high-fidelity prototype.

Research Overview

Knowing that we wanted to focus on animal rescue, but unsure of the specific path we would take, we began our research with the intent of learning what we could from pet owners’ adoption experiences and rescue organizations’ adoption processes and challenges. We identified that foster homes are oftentimes the bridge to a successful adoption in a shelter animal’s journey, from being brought into a rescue group’s care to its adoption into a forever home. Our research question was “How can we better support the experience for foster pet parents and encourage more people to foster?”"

Key Findings

Service Blueprint

In order to better understand the communication between the fosters and organizations during the entire adoption and fostering process we created service blueprints. These blueprints cover the different scenarios for fosters because communication varies depending on if the organization is a shelter or rescue. We made three variations which included one about the prospective communication between the foster and organization utilizing our design solution.

Scope

Our goal with this prototype was to create a high-fidelity walk through of the application that showcases the main user flow and interactions.

Although one of our main areas of focus is the communication between the foster and the organization, due to time constraints, we decided to solely focus on the foster facing application. In a variation of our service blueprint, we lay out how the communication between the foster facing application and organization facing web app function. We also solely focused on creating an iPhone application.

Design Overview

As an ideation exercise, we first documented the problems uncovered in our research and what our participants’ needs were. At this point we decided as a team to design an app experience as we learned fosters primarily document their animal’s milestones using their phones. Each team member created individual sketches of how we imagined to solution for these. We presented our ideas to each other, noted interactions highlighted in our designs and then created broader groups for these issues. We found that we were aligned in terms of priorities which fell into three buckets: communication, infrastructure and community.

Using the identified needs we developed a potential information architecture in order to ensure functionality, interactions, and navigation were built accordingly. Additionally, we wanted to account for the complete paths users may take when using our design and developed a user flow to further inform our prototype design and ensure efficiency.

Because we were focused on the fosters’ introduction to a specific organization and their first time experience, we included two variations. One flow focused on first-time users completing the orientation and preparing for a foster, while the second flow focused on repeat users. We also addressed how fosters would manage their current foster pets, communicate with the organization, request for help if needed, and engage with the community.

Design Evolution

Low Fidelity

Based on our ideation and potential information architecture, we created a low fidelity prototype and built out the major sections we were hoping to receive feedback on when user testing. From our research and co-design session we knew it was important to include a check-in with organization flow, community section, and an area where fosters can reach out to organizations specifically for help with behavior, medical, or other needs.

High Fidelity

Taking feedback from our initial concept test, we revisited some navigation issues, search functionality, and generally made the features clearer. We also addressed what would be incorporated in the community section, based on the fosters expressed need to “have the support of others with similar experiences.”

We conducted 2 rounds of usability testing using rapid iterative testing and evaluation to ensure that our design was going in the right direction and effectively solving the problem. We compiled and analyzed all of the data we received into a spreadsheet documenting the delighters in green and possible pain points in red. This data helped us move forward with our design iterations as we took into consideration all feedback received from the participants.