Designing Hope

UX/UI Group Project – 4 Weeks
Redesigning the adoption journey for a nonprofit serving homeless pets.

Project Overview

Second Chance for Homeless Pets is a nonprofit focused on rescuing and rehoming animals. Their website had become outdated, hard to navigate, and lacked emotional resonance. Our goal was to design a smoother, more trustworthy, mobile first adoption process that resonated with both logic and heart.

  • Client: Conceptual redesign for Second Chance for Homeless Pets

  • Role: Branding & Visual Design Lead, Interactive Prototype Designer, Research Contributor

  • Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Google Forms, Slack, Google Docs, Zoom

  • Team: 4 Designers

  • My Focus: Logo creation, high-fidelity interaction design, survey distribution & analysis

The Challenge

The original site presented key usability and branding issues:

  • Poor mobile responsiveness and confusing navigation structures

  • Incomplete pet bios and vague adoption process information

  • Clunky donation flow and outdated design visuals

We needed to create a mobile-first site with emotionally engaging visuals, improved accessibility, and user flows that streamlined pet discovery, adoption, and donation.

My Role & Responsibilities

In this collaborative project, I led or directly contributed to:

  • Logo Design and Brand Identity: Created a warm, approachable visual system using soft colors and friendly typography

  • Prototype Interaction Design: Built interactive mid- and high-fidelity prototypes using Figma

  • User Research Distribution: Led survey outreach that collected 70+ responses to inform design priorities

User Persona & Journey

Persona: Sarah Thompson – a 28-year-old marketing coordinator from Salt Lake City. Tech-savvy and compassionate, Sarah wants an intuitive adoption experience that helps her find a pet that fits her busy lifestyle.

Journey Highlights:

  1. Searches for pet adoption options and finds Second Chance

  2. Uses filters to view profiles and discovers a pet named Julie

  3. Reads a detailed pet profile but is unsure about compatibility

  4. Completes an online application and schedules a meet-and-greet

  5. Confidently completes the adoption, feeling supported throughout

Design Strategy

Our brand identity aimed to build immediate emotional trust:

  • Color Palette: Warm blues, pinks, and oranges to create comfort and warmth

  • Typography: Friendly, modern typefaces (Quicksand, Sen, Gabarito) for clarity and accessibility

  • Tone & Imagery: Expressive pet photos, encouraging messaging, and simplified calls to action

The logo was designed to reflect hope, companionship, and second chances through shape and composition.

The Process

Our team followed a human-centered UX design framework, moving from research through to refined interactive prototypes:

  • Discover

    • We kicked off the project by distributing a targeted survey to potential adopters, collecting over 70 responses. From this data, we uncovered pain points related to mobile usability, lack of transparency in pet bios, and a confusing overall structure.

  • Define

    • With insights from our research, we crafted a proto-persona and user journey to guide decision-making. We aligned around core priorities like simplified navigation, mobile responsiveness, and emotionally supportive adoption flows.

  • Design

    • Working collaboratively, we sketched and built low- and mid-fidelity wireframes that laid the foundation for our solution. I developed a warm brand identity and created the mobile-first, high-fidelity interactive prototype using Figma.

  • Test

    • We tested three visual variations in an A/B format, leading to clear preferences from users. Based on this feedback, we iterated our layout, refined the navigation, and adjusted typography and visual hierarchy for better clarity and warmth.

The Solution

The redesigned experience included:

  • A simplified, mobile-friendly adoption portal

  • Transparent and engaging pet profiles

  • A warm, trust-building visual identity

  • Clear, actionable navigation for adoptions

Outcome & Reflection

While the redesign was conceptual, this project demonstrated how strategic design can support real-world causes and drive clarity, trust, and engagement.

  • User Testing Feedback: Described as "emotionally engaging" and "easy to navigate"

  • Visual Identity Reception: Testers praised the brand for being more representative of the nonprofit’s mission

  • Design Takeaways: I learned how to translate user research into actionable branding, and how to use emotional design to deepen user connection