ALEXIS MILLER
PORTAL FOR ANIMAL WELLNESS SUPPORT
Social Impact & Service Design
A centralized dashboard for discovering urgent animal shelter needs, donations, and volunteer opportunities
Project Overview
This project addresses a critical gap in the animal welfare ecosystem: while shelters and rescues rely heavily on donations, there is no centralized way for individuals to see which resources are most urgently needed across facilities in Indiana. The level of funding and donations directly impacts how effectively shelters can care for animals and place them in permanent homes.
To address this, I designed a solution focused on increasing awareness, improving access to information, and driving more targeted support for animal shelters and rescues.
For this project, I applied principles of human-computer interaction, design thinking, and transmedia storytelling to create a cohesive, user-centered experience. The final deliverables included a mid-fidelity website prototype called the Portal for Animal Wellness Support (PAWS), along with a supporting social media campaign and a comprehensive research paper documenting the literature review, design process, and formative usability testing.
Tools
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Figma
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Qualtrics
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Dovetail
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Miro
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Adobe Express
Impact & Key Findings
100% task completion rate across key support actions, including finding events, identifying urgent donation needs, and locating volunteer opportunities
Heat map visualization enabled instant identification of high-need shelters, allowing users to prioritize where support was most urgently required
Users located urgent donation needs quickly without browsing multiple listings or pages
Participants reported high confidence in understanding where and how to help
Centralized donation and volunteering platform eliminated the need to visit multiple websites, allowing users to access donations, volunteering, adoption, and events in one place
Reduced time and effort required to find ways to support shelters by consolidating fragmented information into a single decision-support interface
User Research
Formative Testing Results
Initial formative testing was conducted to gather feedback on the prototype before task-based usability testing. Participant feedback helped identify opportunities to improve content clarity, information organization, and navigation.
Simplified
Text Layout
Finding
Participants found some of the content difficult to scan.
Insight
User needed shorter, more digestible information to quickly understand the shelter's needs and ways they could help.
Design Response
Simplified the text and improved the content hierarchy to make key information easier to scan.
Reorganized
Content
Finding
Participants had difficulty locating information about donating and volunteering.
Insight
The dashboard needed to prioritize the actions and information most relevant to users' goals.
Design Response
Reorganized content around key user needs and actions.
Clearer, More Accesible Navigation
Finding
Some navigation links weren't immediately clear or predictable.
Insight
Users needed clearer labels and more accessible pathways to important sections.
Design Response
Revised navigation labels and links to make destinations easier to understand and access.
Usability Testing
Task-based usability testing was conducted using the pet donation dashboard prototype to evaluate how easily users could locate urgent needs and take action.
Scenario
You care about supporting local animal shelters and rescues and want to find ways to help animals in need. You have some time to volunteer, may be interested in making a donation, and want to share information about local animals and rescue efforts with others. Use the pet donation dashboard to explore current opportunities and decide how you would like to support a shelter or rescue.
Tasks
Task 1: Find an Upcoming Animal Rescue Event
Task Description: Participants were able to navigate the dashboard to locate upcoming rescue events and identify key event details. The task evaluated the discoverability of event information and whether users could quickly understand how to participate or provide support.
Task 2: Identify Shelters with Urgent Donation Needs
Task Description: Participants used the dashboard to identify shelters with urgent needs and determine where support was most needed. The task evaluated whether the heat map and supporting information effectively communicated urgency and helped users make informed decisions about where to donate.
Task 3: Learn How to Help or Volunteer
Task Description: Participants explored the dashboard to identify ways to support shelters and rescues beyond monetary donations. The task evaluated whether volunteer opportunities and other ways to help were easy to discover and understand.
Task 4: Locate Adoptable Animals
Task Description: Participants navigated the dashboard to find animals available for adoption and review relevant information. The task evaluated the clarity of the adoption pathway and how easily users could locate information about adoptable animals.
Task 5: Share Information on Social Media
Task Description: Participants located an animal, event, or donation opportunity they wanted to share and identified the available social sharing option. The task evaluated whether social sharing functionality was easy to discover and supported users in extending the reach of shelter and rescue information.
Testing measured navigation clarity, task completion, decision-making speed, and the effectiveness of heat map data visualization in guiding user decisions.
The Design Thinking Process
Empathy Research
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What is the problem?
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When does the problem occur?
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Who is having this problem?
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Conduct User Interview and surveys
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Saturate & Group
Define
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Identify goals, needs, wants
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Identify specific problems
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Identify key behaviors and attitudes
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User Journeys
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Personas
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Affinity Diagrams
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"How Might We..." statements
Ideate
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Brainstorming sessions
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Storyboarding
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Developing MANY ideas
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Rough layouts and sketches
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Communicating what is and isn't possible.
Prototype
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Wireframes
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Prototypes
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Ensuring the prototype meets users' needs
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User flows
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Accessibility
Test
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Usability Testing
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A/B Testing
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Quantitative analysis
Mid-Fidelity Prototype Walkthrough
Social Media Campaign
A social media campaign was created through a series of three different types of social media post concepts designed to illustrate what potential photos from Instagram and Facebook would consist of.
The PAWS social media campaign consists of three main messages:
Current animal
shelter trends
How you can help
Success stories
How you can help messages would be displayed through the use of urgent donation needs that have been requested along with graphics that tell if a shelter or rescue is at capacity. Graphics would also use maps to display locations currently offering low-cost clinics, microchipping, or shelters that need donations and volunteers. Success story messages would be displayed through photos from adoption clinics, volunteering events, and other photos showing donations given to shelters and how they are being used.
Next Steps
Continue Mobile Prototype Development
A mobile mid-fidelity prototype is currently in progress, focusing on adapting the dashboard experience for smaller screens while maintaining clear navigation and accessible interactions.
Conduct Additional Usability Testing
Test the mobile experience with users to evaluate navigation, task completion, and ease of finding urgent donation and volunteer opportunities across different device sizes.
Refine the Heat Map Visualization
Continue evaluating the heat map to ensure urgency indicators are understandable, accessible, and effectively support users in prioritizing where to donate.
Validate Donation & Volunteer Flows
Conduct additional research to understand where users may encounter friction when moving from discovering an opportunity to completing a donation or volunteer action.
Explore Accessibility Improvements
Evaluate the experience against accessibility best practices, including color contrast, visual hierarchy, navigation, and the interpretation of heat map data.
Key Takeaways
This project demonstrates my ability to design a human-centered donation dashboard that transforms fragmented animal shelter data into clear, actionable opportunities for support. By prioritizing information hierarchy, visual clarity, and centralized access, I enabled users to quickly identify urgent needs, discover events, and engage with volunteering opportunities without unnecessary friction. Features like heat map visualizations and consolidated listings reduced the time and effort required to take meaningful action, resulting in a 100% task completion rate and high user confidence. The outcome is an intuitive, decision-support experience that increases awareness, streamlines giving, and helps direct critical resources to animal shelters and rescues where they are needed most.