Peoria Humane Society
Client: Peoria Humane Society
Timeline: August 2023 – December 2023
Role: Project Manager & UX Designer
The Problem
The PHS website had been underperforming in key support areas: lower-than-expected adoption submissions and limited donor engagement. Our task was to identify usability and emotional barriers in the existing experience and design an effective solution that would better connect users to PHS’s mission.
The Solution
Based on the research my group conducted, we decided to create a solution that would drive emotional connection and community engagement. To do this, we created a new page on the website for adoption stories. Previous adopters could submit their adoption experience with PHS to encourage more people to choose PHS for their next adoption.
The high-fidelity mockups were presented and delivered to the client. The client was pleased with our product and implemented our designs on the PHS website.
Final Deliverable
My Process
Heuristic Evaluation of Website
Our first task was to complete a heuristic evaluation of the current PHS website. This helped us to assess what the website was doing well and what improvements could be made.
Business & User Goals
Establishing clear business and user goals was a crucial part of our process. We met with PHS stakeholders to understand their objectives, as well as interviewed current PHS donors to get their perspective on current community events and ease of interaction with the website. Using this information, we crafted the goals and users that we wanted to focus on for this project.
Heat Maps
We incorporated the use of heat maps in our research process to understand how users were interacting with the current website. The heat maps helped us to see a visual representation of user interactions. We incorporated the findings from these to help inform design and content placement.
Ideation Session
The ideation session was a collaborative effort from my team. During the session, we explored a variety of options for final deliverables. After the dot voting and discussion, we decided to focus on sharing adoption stories on the website and social media. This addition would foster a more community-focused feel to PHS and create emotional connections with the users.
Quad Chart
After we decided on our concept, we created a quad chart detailing our idea, anticipated outcomes, approach, and proposed deliverables to the client for approval. The quad chart allowed us to communicate our proposal to the client easily and provided clarity on our vision and goals for the remainder of the project.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Brand Identity
To reinforce the visual and emotional consistency of the adoption stories feature, I developed a branding guide that defined key visual elements and design principles. This guide ensured that the new experience felt cohesive with PHS’s existing identity while also enhancing emotional engagement.
High Fidelity Designs
Our final solution was integrated with the current PHS nav bar, footer, and hero sections.
When a user navigates to the adoption stories page, they land on this page. This page has an overview of all the published adoption stories.
After clicking on “Learn More,” they are taken to the story page for the corresponding animal. Here, users can learn more about the animal, read the adoption story, and easily navigate to other animal stories using the sidebar.
From the landing page, users can also navigate to this page, where they can submit an adoption story.
Results and Outcome
The adoption stories feature provided PHS with a scalable and emotionally engaging tool that empowers supporters to share experiences and invites new users to engage with the organization in a meaningful way.
The high-fidelity mockups were well-received by the client, and PHS implemented the design directly on their live site.
My Teammates
Hannah Dickinson
Phiona Pauly
Let's Connect!
I’m currently available for freelance projects and full-time opportunities. I’d love to connect and learn more about how I can help bring your vision to life.