meghan zodrow designer
CASE STUDY
SPEAKING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO VOICE
Community cats rely on caretakers, but can a website do even more for their support?
EXISTING DELTA VIEW CATS WEBSITE
THE CHALLENGE
Delta View Cats is a non-profit organization located in Pittsburg, CA. Their current website has little traffic and could use a great deal of improvement.
I was a part of this project with a team of 4 UI/UX designers to take a single page website and develop it into a full functioning website to help promote and deliver the humane management of the community cat population.
Support your local street cats
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IN THE BEGINNING
The Delta View Cats non-profit organization began with one person seeing a need to care for and protect community cats. The 100% volunteer-led program insures that the cats in the marina area of Pittsburg, CA are trapped, altered, vaccinated and returned back to the location in which they were found.
Currently, the non-profit’s website is a single page that provides very little information and no way to engage the potential donors who want to invest their time or money in a worthwhile community-led program.
To promote and deliver in the city of Pittsburg the humane management of our abandoned community cat overpopulation
VISION STATEMENT
MARKET RESEARCH
Up to 60,000 cats are born each year
Cats reproduce so quickly, that we end up euthanizing 70% of cats that are in shelters.
(Pet Assistance Foundation)
10,000 abandoned cats in Pittsburg
It’s estimated that there are 8,000 to 10,000 abandoned cats only in Pittsburg, CA alone.
In the whole U.S., it’s estimated that there are 30 to 40 million community cats.
(Humane Society)
2% of abandoned cats are spayed or neutered
Community cats are responsible for 80% of new kittens being born each year.
(Humane Society)
$19.50
cost of feeding one cat for a month
It costs 65¢ to feed one cat per day, so it would take $195,000 to feed all abandoned cats in Pittsburg each month!
However, only 10-12% of people provide food for community cats.
(Humane Society)
USER RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY
We conducted five interviews and surveyed 42 respondents, and discovered that:
Feeling helpful
Where does my $$$ go?
Googled it!
Ugh... This website...
64.2% respondents have donated money to a shelter or cat rescue at least once.
59.3% said that they donated because they felt like helping out.
37.5% respondents said they haven’t donated because they didn’t know what their money will be spent on.
Another 37.5% couldn’t find donation information on a cat rescue website before.
50% of our respondents said they chose a shelter or cat rescue through a web search.
Only 18.2% people chose it because it was close to home.
54.6% of them complained about websites that were difficult to use and lacked important information.
Five 1-on-1 interviews (1 male, 3 female, 1 non-binary, ages 27–41)
Survey with (42 responses, 66.7% female, 23.8% male, ages 18–55+)
People who are interested in helping cat rescue centers don’t know how they can contribute. They aren’t sure how to get started, what impact they can make, and how their donation is spent.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
USER INSIGHT
Based on the inteviews we conducted and the survey responses, my team and I found that people tended not to donate when not closely associated with a non-profit or when unaware of the need.
“I don’t remember if I’ve ever donated or not.”
“Donations haven’t been presented as an urgent need so I haven’t donated.”
“I don’t have funds to donate.”
“I only donate to organizations that are recommended by friends or I had contact with.”
How might we connect people with cat rescue centers and make them trust that their contribution will be well managed and have a great impact?
PRIORITIZED FEATURES
Upon analysis of all of the user interviews, surveys and research, we identified 4 areas to focus on to increase user understanding and increased financial support.
Learn
about cats through stories
Explore ways to support
Know
your contribution impact
Get Involved
donate or volunteer
USER FLOW
Discover Delta View Cats
Explore the Content
Get Involved
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Meet Delta View Cats and their stories
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Statistics on our impact
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Our story
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Ways to support us
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Donate or support through Amazon or Chewy wishlists
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Register as volunteer
LO-FI WIREFRAMES AND TESTING
Before a prototype, I sketched mobile first.
MOBILE USER TEST TAKEAWAYS
“Support Us seems vague and the same as Get Involved.”
“What does
Sponsor Me mean?”
“Donor pay processing fees seems like a trap.”
“You’re trying too hard to get money.”
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Refined hierarchy of support options and changed the titles
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Removed Sponsor Me button and prioritized donations for the MVP
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Moved monthly subscription button to the top, improved the copy on paying the fees
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Removed Donate buttons from About Us and Contact Us pages
DESKTOP SKETCHES
DESKTOP USER TEST TAKEAWAYS
“I’d like information donation are spent only on cats.”
“Buttons are too big.”
“It’s a big footer and half of it is empty.”
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Added statistics in more places and emphasized how the organization is led and donations are spent
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Changed buttons on all pages and redesigned the footer
HI FI MOBILE PROTOTYPE
Discover Delta View Cats
Explore the Content
Get Involved
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE Mobile
HI FI DESKTOP PROTOTYPE
Discover Delta View Cats
Explore the Content
Get Involved
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE Desktop
USABILITY TESTS KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Participants appreciated clean and simple design of the website, they all successfully completed the tasks.
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It wasn’t clear that Delta View Cats wasn’t a shelter, and there’s not enough information on how it’s different.
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Participants expected to see more information about the organization and their work, as well as more statistics on how donations are spent.
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On mobile, menu subgroups weren’t clear and could use some indentation.
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On mobile, buttons were as big as the headers and were drawing too much attention. Users also thought headers were clickable.
“I like it, it’s simple and clean.”
“I really like the footer and cat icons.”
“I’d like more information about the organization before I donate.”
BEFORE AND AFTER
Before we approached Delta View Cats, their non-profit website was a single page with text that difficult to read over a moving background. It provided little more than the content in text heavy paragraphs. After this project, their website is rich with imagery and has multiple pages that will help visitors to find information about the non-profit, a place to donate and to volunteer, with stories and testimonials to draw on the viewers heart and wallet for help and financial support.
EXISTING DELTA VIEW CATS NON-PROFIT WEBSITE
REDESIGNED DELTA VIEW CATS NON-PROFIT WEBSITE
MEASURE FOR SUCCESS
Currently, Delta View Cats receives $30 each month on recurring donations, has 19 volunteers and is able to feed 45 colony cats per month.
With our new design Delta View Cats will be able to:
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Increase conversion from visitors to donators and volunteer sign ups
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Increase the number of donation per month
by 50%
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Improve average time spent on the website
PROJECT SUMMARY & NEXT STEPS
There are still many things we would like to improve. However, the new design has achieved its goal: helping users trust that their contribution will be well-managed and will have a positive impact on the cat community.
In the future we would like to:
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Continue iterating the desktop and mobile designs based on latest test results and feedback
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Provide even more transparency on how the organization is led, donations are spent, and how the cat community have been improving
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Develop creative alternatives to donate and volunteer buttons to stand out in the crowd of shelters and rescue centers
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Add more features like infographics on Delta’s day-to-day work, interactive statistics, and a FAQ page
Homepage
Meet the cats
Get Involved
Donate
Volunteer
Infographics
Interactive Statistics
FAQ
