Pounce de Leon Website

Creating a playful, intuitive website for a pet adoption agency

At a glance

Platform: Wix (both web and mobile)

Timeline: Six months, part-time

Project status: Complete

Tools: Google Analytics, Canva, Asana

My role: Web & UX designer

Main site flow– finding a cat to adopt and sending an inquiry.

Pounce de Leon Cat Rescue requested a website to help cat lovers connect to Pounce and support its mission by adopting, donating or volunteering. The existing website had significant usability and design concerns, so I created an updated beta version of the website for testing. Using user insights, I redesigned Pounce’s website to provide a smooth, engaging experience.

Background

Rescuing homeless animals through fostering and adoption programs

Pounce de Leon is a cat rescue organization that operates locally in Atlanta, Georgia. Pounce provides medical care and temporary foster housing to homeless cats until they can be adopted into permanent homes.

Project goal

Love Cats. Support Pounce.

Design a website experience that helps cat lovers connect to Pounce and support its mission– by adopting, donating or volunteering.

Design process

Beta site + User testing + Data collection = Redesigned site

The existing Pounce de Leon website had significant usability and design concerns, so a basic beta version of the updated website was developed for user testing. Google Analytics was implemented for data collection.

Click to expand

User testing & Data collection

Refining designs based on data and user feedback

User testers were recruited through Pounce's contacts local to Atlanta, as well as non-locals with adoption/fostering experience. Testers were adults who were looking to get a new pet, including first-time adopters and people with experience adopting from an animal rescue.

FINDING

The “Cats for adoption” page was the site’s most-visited page, and many potential adopters wanted to immediately browse cats were available for adoption.

SOLUTION

A “Meet our cats” button was added to the homepage so cat-focused users could easily navigate to the desired page.

FINDING

Users found the website impersonal. They stated that feeling a connection to Pounce would make them more comfortable supporting it through adoption and donations.

SOLUTION

Engagement was boosted by:

Adjusting the site copy to be more conversational and user-focused
Adding staff photos/bios (pending)
Displaying Pounce’s social media feed, including photos of newly adopted pets and new pet parents

SOLUTION

I created a graphic and added text explaining how Pounce uses donations to care for animals.

FINDING

Users wanted to know about the financial responsibility of the organization before donating.

SOLUTION

A contact button with a pop-up form was added so that users could express interest and learn more before adopting.

FINDING

Users were hesitant to immediately fill out an adoption application after finding a cat. Most users wanted to meet the cat or ask questions first.

FINDING

Few users arrived at the website through organic search. Pounce did not appear in the search results for users’ most common queries: “cat adoption near me” and “cat rescue Atlanta”.

SOLUTION

I helped the client set up a Google Business Profile with Atlanta as the service area. Wording on the website was also changed from “Northwest Georgia” to specify Atlanta and surrounding areas.

Launching the redesigned site

70% increase in local traffic after specifying the rescue’s location in the site’s copy and setting up a Google Business profile.
50%+ of visitors donate on the redesigned donation page.
10% of visitors navigate directly to the cats for adoption page via the new "Meet our cats" button.

Going forward

UXing application forms

Now that Pounce has an updated, well-functioning website, I want to do user testing on the site’s forms for applying to adopt, foster, and volunteer. These application forms are hosted on a separate platform for animal rescue agencies, and so were not included in the original user testing plan.

What I learned

Negotiating design with clients

This project required negotiation between the client’s preferences and accepted standards for web design. When the client requested a design element that would potentially make the site less user-friendly, I employed three persuasion strategies:

Give evidence of best practices by referencing the design of established sites.
Share a mockup of my design suggestion so the client can more easily visualize its benefits.
When all else fails, user testing will speak for itself and show if a design hinders usability.

Check out some more of my design work:

Art Sphere Volunteer App

ASI App Engagement Project

Coming soon

Sha'arei Orah Congregation Website