AWC Website Redesign

As a volunteer, I took on redesigning my local animal shelter’s website as part of a Google UX Design course project. While the shelter wasn’t able to find a developer to bring the new site to life, the project gave me a chance to apply my skills to a cause I care about and create a more user-friendly experience for the community.

Role: Designer & Researcher

Tools Used: Adobe XD

Project Duration: 6 Months (November 2021 - March 2022)

High Fidelity Prototype Link

Goals

Business Objective:

The goal was to redesign the Animal Welfare Coalition of Northern New Mexico’s outdated 2008 website to make it more modern, user-friendly, and visually engaging for visitors.

My Goal:
The goal of this redesign was to create clearer pathways to adoption and donations while making key information—like available animals, shelter hours, and contact details—easier to find. The focus was on building a more user-friendly, engaging experience to better support the Animal Welfare Coalition of Northeastern New Mexico’s mission.

Evaluative Research

To better understand the needs of the shelter’s primary audience, I interviewed 10 adults from Northern New Mexico with a range of backgrounds and prior experience with shelters—including adoption, volunteering, and donating.

The research confirmed many of our assumptions but highlighted the urgent need for a clean, intuitive website. Users consistently pointed to three major pain points:

Lack of Clear Information: Users felt the site didn’t provide enough honest or helpful details about the animals or the shelter itself.
Poor Organization: A cluttered, outdated layout made it hard to navigate, leading to user frustration and drop-off.
Inconvenience: More rural users wanted to view adoptable animals online before making the long trip to the shelter—something the current site didn’t support well.

These insights became the foundation for a more user-centered redesign.

Ideation & Wireframes

Low Fidelity Prototype

The original AWC website didn’t list adoptable animals, sending users to a 3rd party for available animals. To make adoption easier and keep visitors engaged, I redesigned the site to feature available animals directly and prominently across most website pages and a whole dedicated page to available animals.

The original site barely showcased AWC’s social media presence, so I made sure to feature their social links prominently on every page to boost connection and engagement.

AWC wanted a scheduling feature to help users easily set up meet-and-greets with animals. To keep things simple and consistent, I designed the scheduling and contact forms to have a unified look and feel across the site, making it easy for visitors to navigate and engage.

Iterative Research

I tested the low-fidelity prototype with the same 10 users from the first round of research and uncovered three key insights:

Distracting Social Media Icons: Many felt the social media icons were overwhelming and suggested smaller, less intrusive versions—reminding me how important it is to balance visibility with user comfort.
Unclear News/Blog Headlines & Summaries: Users found the news headlines awkward and wanted longer article summaries, showing the need for clearer, more inviting content to keep visitors engaged.

These insights helped shape a cleaner, more user-friendly design that better meets real user needs.

Mockups

High Fidelity Prototype

To keep the design both accessible and true to AWC’s brand, we refined their signature red, green, and yellow colors for better readability. I chose a clean white background to reduce clutter, making key content stand out through thoughtful use of imagery and icons.

To guide users toward key actions like adopting or donating, I made the main call-to-action buttons bright yellow for maximum visibility. This bold color stood out clearly against the clean background, helping users easily spot and engage with the most important actions on the site.

Conclusion

What Didn’t Go as Planned:
Unfortunately, AWC wasn’t able to implement the redesign due to limited resources and the challenge of finding a developer. While it was disappointing not to see the work go live, the project still gave me valuable experience applying design skills to real-world needs.

Learning:
Starting out in UX design was intimidating, especially since I was new to Adobe XD. I invested time teaching myself how to add features like animations and drop-down menus to improve the project.

Challenges:
Using unfamiliar software was tough, but I embraced the learning process. Conducting user research with strangers was also challenging because outside of ethnographic research in college, it felt a little awkward at first probing users with so many questions. However, interacting with participants over time became my favorite part since I was able to really understand their sentiments.

Reflection:
This was my first time having a designing for a real cause and working directly with real stakeholders. Despite feeling nervous, the experience pushed me to grow my skills, gain confidence, and expand my understanding of UX design.