Dallas Pets Rescue

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DALLAS PETS ALIVE WEBSITE

It is important for a shelter to have any easily navigable online platform in order to keep up and running now. Volunteers, adopters and potential adopters often look online first, so a shelter's site should provide resources to current and potential pet owners as well as provide a place for those interested in the wellbeing of the animals of Dallas to decide how best to help out.

Dallas Pets Alive is a fictional shelter located in Dallas, TX in need of one of these platforms in order to not only invite and inform both adopters and volunteers on the activities and animals at the shelter, but also to provide a warm and inviting presence online.

The focus of this round of designs was:

Home Page
Adoptable Pets Page
Adoption Application Form Page
Pet Profile Page
Foster Profile Page

The shelter was not interested in inspiring pity for the homeless animals, but rather be an inviting and playful place for adopters and volunteers to feel inspired to take an active role in becoming involved with the shelter. This included a contistent style throughout these pages of bright, active colors paired with an easy to read sans serif font so that there is a liveliness to each page without sacrificing legibility.

The flow of the site is accessible by any page through a common header menu and footer layout common on each page.The Foster Profile is accessed by the Get Involved page where there is then a secondary menu in order to login to an existing foster account. By clicking the Find a Pet menu item in the header menu, the Adoptable Pets page can be located where a potential adopter may then see details for a pet by clicking on the animal's card. If the potential adopter would like to apply to adopt this animal they can choose the Ask About Me option on the Pet Profile and be directed to an adoption form to fill out. These flows are intuitive to a user and are common design patterns in the shelter industry.

FOSTER PROFILE PAGE

HOW CAN A VOLUNTEER UPDATE THEIR PROFILE?

HOW CAN A VOLUNTEER FIND UP TO DATE INFORMATION ON THEIR FOSTER ANIMALS?

The Foster Profile page is accessed after a volunteer logs in. On file information about the volunteer can be viewed on this page as well as easily updated by the volunteer themselves. This does away with any need for the volunteer to find someone at the shelter that would need to spend time updating. The animals a foster parent is currently housing can also see up to date information about their animal. The Animal may have adoption applications opened for them. The volunteer should be able to view these in order to help find what's right for a forever home.

ADOPTABLE PETS PAGE

HOW CAN A POTENTIAL ADOPTER VIEW AVAILABLE PETS?

HOW CAN A POTENTIAL ADOPTER FIND ANIMALS THAT WILL BE THE BEST FIT FOR THEIR HOME?

HOW CAN THE SHELTER HIGHLIGHT ANIMALS THAT NEED MORE HELP WITH ADOPTION?

The Adoptable Pets page can be accessed through the header menu. This page shows all adoptable animals in a grid of equals with the most pertinent information for a potential adopter to be able to more easily find the right fit. This includes name, sex, age, and size. It can be tedious for a potential adopter to sift through a large list of animals when they know that some factors will definitely not be compatible with their lifestyle. This is addressed through a filter design pattern. There is a static set of filters for a user to choose from including Animal Type, Size, Breed, Age and Tags. These can help efficiently narrow down a list of adoptable pets. If the adopter is looking for a specific pet (yay!) then this can be easily done through the search functionality located above the filters.

Sometimes there are animals that are not searched for as much and therefore have longer stays at the shelter. The shelter can highlight those animal with a longer stay through the sort functionality at the top of the animal list. Other functionalities of this sort list could include Age, Alphabetical and Size.

PET PROFILE

HOW CAN EXTENSIVE INFORMATION ON AN ANIMAL BE SHOWN INTUITIVELY?

HOW CAN A POTENTIAL ADOPTER BE PREEMPTIVELY INFORMED OF ANY RISKS IN ADOPTING AN ANIMAL INTO THEIR HOME?

If a user clicks on an animal interested in knowing more about them, they can find more extensive information for the animal on the pet's profile page. This page includes images and videos of the animal, the animal's story and demeanor, tags, sex, size, breed, age, location and preferred home environments. Tags are common questions about animals based on their behavior or health, this can include "Neutered" or "Cats Ok". Informing a potential adopter of preferred home environments as well as risks like in the Tags will help to minimize returns due to unknowns about the compatibility between an animal and the adopter's lifestyle.

ADOPTION APPLICATION

HOW CAN THE SHELTER DETERMINE COMPATIBILITY BETWEEN AN ANIMAL AND A POTENTIAL ADOPTER?

When there is interest in an animal, a potential adopter may apply to be evaluated by the shelter for compatibility. This is an extensive form in order for the shelter to get basic contact information from the adopter and to be able to best determine whether it is a match between adopter and animal. There are several different layout of input including large paragraph styles, dropdown, checklist and single line/word.

“The perfect rescue dog is out there for everybody. You just have to find it.”

-Josh Hopkins

Dallas Pets Rescue website can help find you that perfect rescue!

SR