A personal decision became harder when the process didn’t reflect the person.
Our course brief asked us to research and redesign a Chicago area organization’s website. We chose the PAWS Chicago adoption experience and focused on the path from finding a pet to understanding how to move forward with adoption.
Walkthroughs revealed slow filtering, ambiguous quiz questions, and response options that did not reflect participants’ circumstances. Together with unclear next steps, these interruptions left people uncertain about the adoption process. Our design goal was to make finding a relevant pet and understanding the adoption process clearer.
Understanding the Friction
Small interruptions accumulated into uncertainty about the match.
Cognitive walkthroughs of the existing site revealed where tasks stalled. We grouped those observations in an affinity map to distinguish filtering and navigation problems from questions about personal fit. The broader research included adoption, volunteering, and dog training; the redesign concentrated the scope to the adoption experience.
The research connected interaction problems with a more personal concern: people wanted the information they supplied to describe their actual lives. One participant needed to represent being both a student and a worker. Others questioned ambiguous activity labels, pet locations, and required fields.
The affinity map connects walkthrough observations to recurring problems: filtering, unclear steps, and quiz options that did not fit people’s lives. These patterns informed the browsing, quiz, and account concepts shown below.
Turning Research Into a Direction
We connected browsing, matching, and support around an adopter’s needs.
The team’s hypothesis was that a needs-based profile could make it easier to identify relevant pets and return to the search. Affinity mapping helped us connect repeated findings to specific design decisions, rather than treating each interface issue separately.
We also revisited the information architecture. The old navigation could cover the screen and leave people unsure whether a selection had taken them anywhere. We proposed a simpler hierarchy for common tasks, with an account bringing adoption-related actions into a more coherent space.
What we observed | How it shaped the redesign |
|---|---|
Filters reloaded after each selection and could return people to the top of the page. | Let adopters retain preferences and reuse them in browsing; explore applying multiple selections together. |
Quiz options and labels did not always fit a participant’s circumstances or make their meaning clear. | Broaden response options and use a needs-based profile to support more relevant matching. |
People were unsure which information was required and what they needed to do next. | Make form requirements and adoption-related steps easier to find within the account. |
Finding help and keeping track of the process could require moving between pages and email. | Connect results, preferences, applications, and scheduling; refine messaging into focused support and FAQs after testing. |
My Design Focus
I focused on a quiz that made room for more people’s circumstances.
I worked on making the ComPETability quiz’s response options more inclusive, including student occupations and living situations the earlier experience did not accommodate well. The point was to help people describe their lives more accurately before using those answers to guide a pet search.
My Nicky Parker persona kept that concern visible. As a research-informed design tool, Nicky connected the desire for companionship with practical needs: relevant filters, clearer information, and quiz answers that fit her situation. The quiz flow also offered a way back to browsing, alongside choices to email results or continue into a profile.
Nicky Parker is a research-informed persona I created to connect the quiz’s limitations with an adopter’s goals and circumstances.
Proposed ComPETability quiz. Original wireframe export; imagery and some fields remain placeholders.
Keep the adopter in control
The design separates optional pet preferences from household questions and gives adopters explicit paths back to browsing, to emailed results, or into a profile.
The research also surfaced a content problem: a question can be easy to click through while still failing to represent someone’s circumstances. I treated the answer options as part of the UX work.
Keeping the Journey Connected
The account gave results, preferences, and next steps a place to stay together.
After the quiz, I focused on an account where adopters could review their results, revisit saved preferences, and understand the next forms and steps. The proposed profile includes controls for editing preferences and using them to organize available pets.
Our earlier account iteration brought messaging, applications, and appointment scheduling into one place. Class testing then helped us refine how much belonged in the account and how support could work for the organization as well as the adopter.
An earlier account iteration: results and saved preferences sit alongside adoption-related navigation. This export contains placeholder copy and a messaging center that was later removed following class testing.
Interactive Prototype
Click around to explore the adoption journey: browse available pets, open a pet profile, and follow the connected paths to learn more. Clickable areas highlight when you click outside an active control. This academic prototype contains placeholder content and multiple design iterations.
Explore the team’s connected browsing and pet-profile flow inside the page. The Figma file contains multiple design iterations from this academic redesign.
Testing and Iteration
Class testing helped us simplify support and make the next step clearer.
We tested paper prototypes in class across two rounds. The feedback notes called for clearer routes back to browsing, more descriptive profile buttons, and collecting personal information when it became relevant. They also challenged automatic filtering: using saved preferences should be a choice the adopter controls.
Our final presentation records the changes between rounds. The team added FAQs to the chat menu, simplified messaging to be more realistic for the organization, removed the messaging center from the profile, and connected the application more directly to scheduling an appointment. Testing helped us consider both the adopter’s needs and the work required to support them.
Two rounds of classroom paper-prototype testing, documented in our final presentation. The feedback notes helped us revise the paths through the experience.
Outcome and Learning
The work connected usability with the confidence to take another step.
The project produced a desktop and mobile prototype informed by research and two rounds of classroom testing. My contribution connected more inclusive quiz questions with saved results and preferences; the team’s iterations also clarified navigation, support, and the route toward an appointment.
I learned to treat questions, response options, and next steps as one connected experience. Classroom feedback indicated where the design needed clearer navigation and more user control; it did not establish an increase in completed adoptions. Next, I would test with prospective adopters and shelter staff, refine how matching preferences work, and evaluate the account against task completion, confidence, and staff workload.