Pearl Equine Rescue Responsive Website Design: Case Study

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Case Study

Case Study PEARL Equine Rescue Responsive Website Design

Madeline Hamic 2019

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Primary Research

Organization Goals The Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League is a small non-profit equine rescue based in Anderson, South Carolina. Open to all equine, the organization provides aid for animals that have been starved, neglected, or abused. They then rehabilitate the horses for adoption.

During the first stage of research, I determined the purpose and goals of the Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League. The purpose of the P.E.A.R.L. Organization is to aid in the welfare and preservation of equine through education and direct rehabilitation. P.E.A.R.L. offers to accomplish this by providing educational seminars, aid to law enforcement and animal control during seizures, and rehabilitative services.

Purpose Solely funded through donations, P.E.A.R.L. “strives to eliminate abuse and neglect of equines by promoting responsible equine ownership through education and community awareness.”

P.E.A.R.L. works to rehabilitate abused and neglected equine to revitalize them for adoption or placement. To promote the health of equine, the organization offers periodical gelding clinics.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Secondary Research

Recent News: Journal Sentinel This article by the Journal Sentinel details the nationwide problem of equine abuse and neglect.

“It states, “Nationwide, more than 1 million horses have shipped to slaughter since 2007, according to the Equine Rescue Network. Of the estimated 9.2 million horses in the U.S., about 190,000 are considered unwanted.”

Thanks to organizations like the ASPCA Equine Welfare Programs that create reward-backed challenges for equine rescues, thousands of equines have been adopted.

Recent News: ASPCA In this stage of research, I discovered innovative ways to combat equine abuse and neglect.

Fox News Article This article by Fox News describes the widely successful “Help a Horse Home Adoption Challenge.” The organization’s website tells the purpose and impact of the challenge, stating, “Now in its sixth year, the ASPCA’s annual Help a Horse initiative has been a meaningful way for equine rescues, shelters and sanctuaries to increase awareness for their lifesaving work to help at-risk horses by competing to win valuable grant funding and other resources.”

By initiating this challenge, it significantly raised awareness for the problem of abused equine, while setting an incentive for equine rescues to advance their amount of adoptions.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Secondary Research

Recent News: Equine Rescue of Aiken Next, I researched the methods of successful equine rescue organizations.

The Equine Rescue of Aiken focuses on educating animal control officers in order to help them be very knowledgeable in all cases of urgent equine seizure. They also emphasize the importance and helpfulness of implementing volunteers in the workforce of the rescue.

Recent News: Equine Rescue of Aiken I then researched effective ways to maintain equine rescues in order to have a firmer grasp on the mechanics and tasks of the operations.

This article interviews the founder of the Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League, Nicole Maubert Walukewicz. She informs that it is crucial to have a plan of action when beginning an equine rescue. This includes choosing to, “rescue horses, buy from kill pens, work with law enforcement, accept surrenders, and educate the public.”

These actions are integral to finding and obtaining equine in need of rehabilitation. In order to stay afloat, it is key to be flexible working with the challenges of operating equine rescues.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Secondary Research

Innovations: ICE Blackbox App If advertised more widely, this innovation could immensely aid in the identification and discovery of abused and neglected horses. Developed in 2014 by the National Sheriffs Association and the Humane Society of the United States, the ICE BlackBox app was created to enable users to easily report instances of animal cruelty.

The app’s features allow users to take short videos of animal cruelty, and record GPS coordinates, as well as the ability to send the photos to local law enforcement. With better implementation, this app could help reduce the number of neglected equine.

Innovations: Help a Horse Home Adoption Challenge This article by Fox News describes the widely successful “Help a Horse Home Adoption Challenge.” The organization’s website tells the purpose and impact of the challenge, stating, “Now in its sixth year, the ASPCA’s annual Help a Horse initiative has been a meaningful way for equine rescues, shelters and sanctuaries to increase awareness for their lifesaving work to help at-risk horses by competing to win valuable grant funding and other resources.”

By initiating this challenge, it significantly raised awareness for the problem of abused equines, while setting an incentive for equine rescues to advance their amount of adoptions.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Secondary Research

Solutions from Competitors: Equine Rescue Aiken In this section of research, I sought out websites of other equine rescues and organizations that used effective principles of design to help ease the use of the provided resources.

One of the competitors of P.E.A.R.L., the website of Equine Rescue Aiken has a very accessible and clear home page. The bulk of the space on the home page is taken up by a large slider revolution that features crisp photos of horses at the rescue.

The text on the photo distinctly clarifies the goals of the organization. The navigation bar at the top clearly displays the offered pages on the website.

The volunteer button is very visible, emphasizing its importance.

Solutions from Competitors: Equine Rescue Aiken When scrolling down the home page, the navigation bar floats with the scroll. Another useful feature is the inclusion of the call-to-action, “How Can You Help?” It then features the three most important actions for users of the site, “Adopt,” “Donate,” along with “Volunteer.” By placing these on the main homepage, it creates a clear direction for the user and easy accessibility to the specified actions.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Secondary Research

Solutions from Competitiors: Equine Rescue Aiken When clicking on the “Volunteer” page, it immediately shows an economized and clear organization of call-to-actions for the user. The minimality of the elements on the page helps economize the content, allowing the user to quickly find their destination.

Solutions from Competitiors: Adopt a Horse The placement of these box elements enables a clear and direct view of the horses up for final adoption. This design strategy can immensely help increase adoptions by implementing high-quality photography with easy navigation.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Market Data

Social Media Presence The Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League does not have a very broad marketing outreach. Along with the website, the only other marketing outlet in use is their Facebook account.

The photos posted in the early years of P.E.A.R.L. show raw, emotion-inducing photos of emaciated horses receiving care from the workers at the Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League.

These images can be highly impactful, and would elicit a emotional appeal from audiences if posted more often. The most current posts do not show any current events of the organization. This could cause the organization to appear inactive.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Interviews

Interview Results During the interview process, I contacted 25 people who were connected to P.E.A.R.L., whether it was through sponsorships, reviews of their services, recommendations, or partnerships. Each of these people either would not respond or answer my questions or stated that they had never heard of the organization. Thankfully, Mrs. Walukewicz and Dr. Stafford replied with valuable answers.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Interviews

Nicole Walukewicz | Owner/Chair of P.E.A.R.L. Based on Mrs. Walukewicz’s response, I was able to determine the exact goals of P.E.A.R.L., which are to provide rehabilitation to abused horses, attract adoptions, and educate law enforcement.

I learned that the rescue is very small, with only four horses being rehabilitated currently.

She also explained how their target audience is primarily focused on horse owners, youth, and the public. This drastically helped me narrow down the target audience to the most important groups of people. Surprisingly, I found that Mrs. Walukewicz does not want donations anymore. This directly impacts the goals of the website.

I also determined from the interview that P.E.A.R.L. definitely wants to hire volunteers and has specific hiring process steps for them. This could be a primary focus of the website. She also mentioned how she would like testimonials and case studies to be important aspects of the website, so I will definitely incorporate that. I also discovered that they do not accept field trips from schools, which narrows down the users of the site.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Interviews

Dr. Keith Stafford | User/Primary Veterinarian of P.E.A.R.L. While Dr. Stafford is not necessarily a user, he was the only other person who would respond.

Nonetheless, his feedback was very helpful.

Because he has never used P.E.A.R.L.’s website, he was a little confused and flustered, but he did provide some helpful insights.

Similar to Mrs. Walukewicz, he reiterated how testimonials would be very useful to site users.

He also discussed the importance of promoting their involvement of passing legislature related to equine rescue, which is something new that I had not come across in my research. This could be an emphasis in the website goals.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Design Challenge

I began by following the steps recommended by the Human Centered Design Toolkit, shown in the form of questions below.

Increasing the white space to create effective focal points and organizing the elements of the webpages will be helpful as well.

What is the problem I am trying to solve for P.E.A.R.L.?

Context and Constraints

To provide rehabilitation resources for abused and neglected horses in South Carolina.

Design Question How can the website provide clear instructions and resources for people with abused horses?

Ultimate Impact Provide treatment and rehabilitation for horses that were abused or neglected in the upper South Carolina area.

Possible Solutions Create a website that has clear and easy-tofollow navigation, with visual hierarchy and highquality images. The information on the website is very heavy, so it would be beneficial to minimize the amount of text in each area of the website.

The organization is very small and does not have solidified branding or an updated marketing plan and outreach.

These questions helped me rethink and rephrase the design problem.

Revised question How can the website provide an appealing and clear navigation of services for individuals seeking equine rehabilitation services?

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Audience and Goals

Primary Audience This stage of research focused on determining the target audience and various goals of the website.

In order to determine the exact audience and goals of the organization, I implemented several research techniques. These methods helped specify the exact content and actions needed on the website.

The first step that I took was to identify all of the primary groups of people who interact with the organization, identified by the purple sticky notes.

These include individuals who work with P.E.A.R.L., such as veterinarians and law enforcement, and those who use their services, like adopters and equine owners.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Audience and Goals

Secondary Audience The secondary groups of people are those who are related to the primary group, and thus are indirectly impacted by the organization.

Primary Audience Groups

Lastly, I divided the audience groups into either needing the services of P.E.A.R.L. or giving services to the organization. This enabled me to determine which groups of people were involved.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Audience and Goals

Define Goals By defining the overarching and specific goals, it clarified the needed elements for the website.

I used the sticky note exercise to determine the goals of the client, audience, and website. Most of the goals were very similar, which immensely helped determine the most crucial goals to focus on when redesigning the website.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Audience and Goals

Goals Definition Based on this research, the primary goal of the Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League is to provide rehalilitative resources to neglected and abused horses. In order to accomplish this goal, the organization primarily needs donations and volunteers by means of raising awareness through the website.

While the target audience has several different groups of people, it is primarily focused upon accomplishing the goals of adopting, donating, volunteering, and learning pertinent information.

The goals of the website are to clearly define the important information, and attract donations, adoptions and volunteers. Most of these goals are very similar, which immensely helped me confirm the needed elements of the website.

After reviewing the goals and practices stated on the P.E.A.R.L. website and gathering information from the audience research, I was able to set the specific the specific goals. To aid in accomplishing

these goals, the main design strategy I will implement is to organize and condense the information on the website. Clear navigation to call-to-action buttons will also aid in creating a more straightforward user experience.

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Site Map

Palmetto Equine Awareness & Rescue League

Home

About Us

Donate

Adopt

Volunteer

Services

Education

News

Contact

Who We Are

Payment Form

Successful Placements

Sign-Up Form

Rehabilitation Programs

Types of Seminars

Updates

Hours

Events to Sponsor

Horses for Adoption

Tasks

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Seminars

Case Reports

Mission Statement

Staff

Needed Resources

Testimonials

History

Internships

Sponsors

Blog

Legal Documents

Financial Reports

South Carolina Equine Laws

Location

Calendar Of Events

Equine Facts

Emergency Instructions

Main Navigation

Primary Goals

Main Landing Pages

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign User Flow and Wireframes

Wireframes For the next step of the process, I created wireframes for each of the mobile screens.

By doing this, I was able to determine which elements needed to be on each screen.

User Flow Number One

User: Undergraduate Veterinary Student Goal: Apply to Volunteer

Opening Touchpoint

I also created several user flows to determine probable sequences that users would use to navigate the website.

Looking for a summer internship, Sarah googled “Anderson Animal Rescue.”

PEARL Equine Rescue Redesign Solution

Style Tile To fully encompass the solution to the design challenge, I created a Style Tile. This incorporated the Call to Action, colors, and typefaces that were consistent with the character of P.E.A.R.L. When designing my Style Tile, I kept the following adjectives in mind, dedicated, caring, educational, kind, restorative, active, healthful, and resourceful.

These adjectives accurately describe the purpose, goals, and the character of the Palmetto Equine Awareness and Rescue League, which I gathered from my interviews and other research. As for the website’s typefaces, I chose the family of Roboto because of its modern sans serif characteristics that embody the approachability and accessibility of P.E.A.R.L. Headers are Bold Roboto, subheads are Italic Roboto, and the body copy is the Roboto Regular typeface.

To convey the characteristics of P.E.A.R.L., I incorporated three colors. The gray hue shows the strong dedication of the organization. In a different way, the light blue color represents the healing and caring aspects of P.E.A.R.L. Lastly, the coral red color acts as a focal point and represents the constant action of the equine rescue.

The ‘Adopt a Horse’ buttons show an example of the organization of the elements on the Adoption page. Similar to my research of horse adoption sites, I included headshots of the featured horses along with their names. This placement evokes an approachable and easy-to-navigate organization that users could easily be attracted to.