About FosterFund 🐶
FosterFund’s Canine Compatibility Matcher (FCCM) is a nonprofit based in Chicago, United States designed to revolutionize the foster-based pet adoption ecosystem. It connects verified, pre-approved pet sitters and fosters with rescue dogs in need of temporary care, offering the added benefit of guaranteed compensation for fosters.
Project Objective 🐾
The shelter crisis in United States has escalated, with over 4,000 adoptable dogs euthanized daily due to overcrowding. The primary challenge FCCM seeks to solve is the fragmented foster application process, which often forces users to apply separately to multiple rescue organizations.
FosterFund aims to streamline this experience by building an MVP web app with scalable features that simplify foster onboarding and enhance collaboration across rescues. The platform will centralize the application process through a universal application form, allowing users to apply once and access multiple rescue networks.
Link to prototype 🖼️
Process 💭
Connecting with our client:
In our kickoff meeting with FosterFund, we learned about our client’s mission, background, and goals to connect short-term dog fosters with flexible income opportunities. Our client emphasized the importance of ease, they want rescues to feel that the platform makes it simple to save more lives. They also aim to make the adoption and fostering process feel fun and engaging, encouraging more participation from users. Our goal was to identify core MVP features that streamline a universal application process and drive meaningful engagement. Ultimately we hope to bridge the gap between willing fosters and dogs in need.
Who We’re Designing For?
FosterFund’s mission is to make fostering more accessible and financially supported. For fosters and pet sitters, the platform simplifies the process with a single universal application and smart matching tailored to individual lifestyles and availability. By broadening the digital foster community, FosterFund has the potential to save millions of dogs from euthanasia and transform the animal rescue ecosystem.
Our client defined a successful MVP as one that includes:
Foster & Dog Profile System: a centralized database with filters for more effective matching.
Universal Application: a streamlined process to connect fosters with dogs in need.
Dog Profile Upload: a simple system for shelters to add and managing dog profiles
Top 3 goals that we hope to deliver are:
Simplify the Foster Process: Eliminate redundancy by introducing a universal application and smart matching system, making it easier and faster for fosters to get involved.
Support Rescues with Scalable Tools: Provide rescues with a centralized dashboard to manage foster applications, streamline communication, and expand their foster pool without overextending limited resources.
Grow and Empower the Foster Community: Raise awareness and build a connected digital community to encourage more people to become fosters and reduce euthanasia rates.
Competitive Analysis
To better understand how users might interact with FosterFund, we conducted a competitive analysis of 5 pet adoption platforms:
| Our competitors excelled at directing users from “I’m interested in adopting” to “I want to adopt this pet!”
From this analysis, we discovered 3 key findings and 6 opportunities for moving users from initial interest to action. We found that successful platforms share three main strengths: clear calls-to-action (CTAs), compelling incentives, and well-informed users.
Ideation and Mapping the Foster & Rescue Experience
We used a variety of methods to generate and refine ideas, including solo brainstorming, How Might We questions, Crazy Eights, dot voting, and UI storyboarding. These activities helped us explore a wide range of creative directions individually and then converge as a team to identify the most impactful solutions. Through this collaborative process, evaluate ideas, align on user priorities, and select solutions that balanced feasibility with user impact, and lay the groundwork for our core user flows.
Understanding Access to the Universal Application (UA)
Low-Mid Fidelity Design Iterations
We began by translating our initial user flows and feature sketches into low to mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma, focusing on functionality, usability, and the overall flow of each feature. These early designs used simple visual elements to clearly communicate how the product would work from the user’s perspective. We also designed responsive layouts for mobile users. As part of our iteration process, we conducted internal A/B testing and dot voting to evaluate different design versions and align on the strongest solutions. Each week, we showcased one flow to our client, gathered early feedback, and incorporate suggestions into ongoing iterations.
Testing our designs on users
Usability Testing
To further evaluate our designs with real users, we conducted usability testing on the mid-fidelity desktop version of the FosterFund web application. The prototype focused on three key user flows: (1) browsing and searching dog profiles, (2) account sign-up, and (3) completing the foster application form.
Our goals for this round of testing were as follows:
Problem Discovery: Identify usability issues within the overall website flow and understand how users navigate through tasks. We were particularly interested in moments where participants became confused, lost, or slowed down when completing a task.
Benchmarking User Performance: Establish a baseline of user performance to quantify the application’s usability among our target audience. These benchmarks provide a foundation for comparison with future iterations and will help us measure improvements in the user experience.
We conducted three sessions with participants representing our target user groups. Each session, held over Zoom, lasted 30–45 minutes. (More details on our testing sessions can be found here.)
Universal Application Form (UA Form)
Issue: Users struggled to notice or understand the UA Form in the navigation bar. They were unclear on its purpose and unlikely to click on it.
Solutions:
We decided to update the copy on the CTA to be clearer choosing to use “Become a Foster Today!”.
We also included more entry points to the UA in other areas of our flow, such as on the success page of our sign-up flow.
Introduced supportive copy to highlight the benefits of filling out the form early
Reframing the form as a proactive suggestion
Filters
Issue: Filters were difficult to find and lacked clear CTA wording.
Solutions:
Increase the visibility of the filters and include stronger CTA words such as “Filter Dogs”
Copy Confusion
Issue: Several pieces of copy were unclear or ambiguous to users (e.g. “I’ll do it later” after account creation —> “Do what later?”)
Solutions:
Replace ambiguous language with clearer, task-specific phrasing
Use simpler, universally understood terms instead of jargon
Finalizing our design
After iterating on our mid-fidelity designs, we created a high-fidelity prototype with both responsive web and mobile versions, which we delivered to FosterFund. The final prototype incorporates key features that were guided by usability testing, competitive analysis, and client feedback. As FosterFund’s first web product, this design serves as a minimum viable product (MVP) to support their initial launch, attract new users, and clearly communicate the value of their platform.
Building a Design System
Final Prototype
How does FosterFund work?
Create your account and Sign up
Sign up quickly and securely to start your fostering journey. Set your preferences such as dog size, special needs, and foster duration to help us personalize matches that fit your lifestyle.
Become a Foster Today
Complete a one-time, universal application to get pre-approved and make future matches faster and easier. Once approved, you can begin your fostering journey and meet your paw-fect match.
Browse Dogs Available for Fostering
Explore available dogs by searching and filtering based on your lifestyle, preferences, and availability. Click into each dog profile to view detailed information and find the best fit for you.
What was the impact?🚀
Quantifying Outcomes from Our Project Cycle
By the end of the project, we designed a fully functional MVP for FosterFund, delivering core user flows, responsive wireframes, and a scalable design system to support early adoption and future growth.
Our projected impact
At the end of the project cycle, we showcased our work at Develop for Good’s Demo Day, presenting our research, design process, and final solutions to an audience of industry professionals, stakeholders, and peers. Following the design phase, we officially handed off our deliverables to our client, including mid-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes, interactive prototypes, and a design system. This handoff included all necessary documentation to support the subsequent development phase and ensure a smooth transition from design to MVP implementation.
Our design will increase match success through personalized dog profiles and clear visual match indicators and also has the potential to help millions of sheltered dogs find temporary homes across the United States!
Testimonial 📩
“Elise and I are very impressed with the team’s work and the multiple UX options they have given us in the course of us working together!”
— Lori Lefcourt, Co-Founder of Fosterfund
Meet the Team 💌
Product Manager: Jenny Shen
Design Manager: Tania Li
Designers: Meeta Hebli, Tina Chen, Crystal Pham, Marie Wibisana, Navya, Mia Dowdell, Mridhula Srinivasan