Shack - UX Case Study

Millions of animals are currently in shelters and foster homes awaiting adoption. Design an experience that will help connect people looking for a new pet with the right companion for them. Help an adopter find a pet which matches their lifestyle, considering factors including breed, gender, age, temperament, and health status.

There are millions of animals in the India living in shelters and waiting to be adopted into a loving home. The pet population in India has grown from 7 million in 2006 to 10 million in 2011. On an average 600,000 pets are adopted every year. The goal of this application is to connect more individuals with pets in their local area, with the hopes of reducing the number of euthanised animals.

The first step I took is to organise the information in a Lean UX Canvas.

Now it is time to get to know the users, test the hypotheses and find out what are the needs of the potential users. I will use two different channels to empathise and get to know the users: Benchmark and Interviews

Checking out the competitors is a must since they give us an idea of ​​what is working, and they will give us information about the user’s behaviours and interactions.

We selected users who are looking for a first pet and don’t know exactly what pet would suit them. We chose this category of users to understand the pain points and their challenges while adopting.

“I don’t know which pet should I adopt”

“I’m interested, not sure where to adopt. I need to know the details and medical reports of the pet.”

“I wish I could do that! Maybe time management is a major issue.”

“Don’t know how to take care of a pet, what they need?”

From the information I already got from user research through interviews and our previous research on competitors, it is time to order and synthesize this information to find insights and patterns.

Goal: Understand the hierarchy of information on pet’s profile.

Method: Complete a card sorting activity with potential users to understand what qualities they find the most important in their pet search.

Pre-Test Questions: Are you interested in purchasing or adopting an animal within a year?

​Task: Order the following elements in order of importance: Vaccinations | Illness | Age | House trained | Spayed | Breed |Size | Gender | Color

5/5 would adopt or purchase within a year

5/5 Shelters

2/5 Pet Shops

0/5 Breeder

5/5 would use online resources

This activity is done by five users and according to the results Age, House Trained and Size were the three most important factors listed, while Color was indicated as one of the least important element

Task flows allowed me to better understand the solution and pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in concept. From there, I continued to brainstorm and refine the idea, always making sure to stay in-line with what the user’s needs and goals are.

Once the overall goal is defined in the flow stage of my process, I sketched multiple options to test and see how by initiating minimal changes to optimize the user experience. During the process of redesign, I continued referring to the target audience, company mission, revenue model and my goal to focus on how to improve the user experience rather than making design changes. After a few rounds of iterations, I came to a good place with the solutions.

Moving forward with the process, I turned my Lo-Fi sketches into Hi-Fi prototypes.

I got these results by testing my clickable prototype with five users.

This UX case study has been a challenging and rewarding experience for me. I was overwhelmed by the idea of getting out and talking to strangers for the usability testings. However, it turned out to be an amazing experience to understand users and their needs.