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Project Brief

Creating a more efficient animal abuse and emergency reporting system, for common individuals who aren’t a part of any specific animal NGO or shelter and 1st responders.

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Duration of the project 

2 months

Project Constraints

  • The majority of the sample group for primary data collection were Gen Z or Millenials from tire two and tire one cities, between the age of 17 to 35 years.

  • The project is limited to Indian demographics and issues.

  • Only takes into consideration individuals well versed with the internet and in possession of smart phones.

About the Project

5W - 1H

1. Why is there a need for it?

The inspiration for the project came from personal experiences and peer interactions. As someone who is empathetic toward animals and has also seen the working of volunteers and rescuers, I understand the frustrations of both parties about the absence of a common platform for sharing important information.

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2. Where can it be used?

The project aims to create a web-based platform that could be used on mobile and desktop devices.

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3. Whom am I creating for?

  • Reporters - Individuals who are empathetic towards animals but aren’t connected to any specific animal NGO or shelters

  • Ist responders - Animal shelter volunteers and rescuers who work as 1st responders in animal emergencies.

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4. When can the platform be used?

It can be utilised by the reporters when they come across an injured or abused animal that they would like to help but don't have the expertise or resources for it. And it can be used by 1st responders for receiving urgent and non-urgent reports of animals in need of help.

Process and Approach -

Design Thinking Framework

I. Empathize

In the empathize phase we have tried to understand both, the primary and secondary users and their impact on each other.

 

We have tried to understand the problems faced by both parties in terms of reporting and receiving reports of animals in need of help or immediate care.

We have also tried to understand the relevance of the problem and the need for a better connection between the two stakeholders.

Present flow of reporting and responding

Relevance of the Problem

Based on the above-shown graphs we can see that the search frequency of the words dealing with animal shelters, NGOs, helplines, stray animals, animal abuse and rescue etc. has seen an increase in the last 5 years. This tells us how the awareness and involvement of the people in animal welfare and reporting animal abuse have gone up, ensuring the need for a better connection between reporters and 1st respondents (Google Trends, 2022).

Types of Reports

These are mainly two types of reports life-threatening or highly urgent or non-life-threatening and moderately urgent.

 

Most life-threatening conditions are medical emergencies and require the most immediate response, followed by any other medical condition and then any other reason for reporting including abandonment or neglect.

 

Thus we can say that life-threatening conditions like trauma and accidents require the fastest response, followed by any other medical condition like pregnancy etc. and then comes any other reason for reporting.

What is Already Being Done for Reporting

​Peta helpline

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  • Peta offers a nationwide helpline no. available to anyone on their website. The number is functional 24/7 and ensures to provide help as soon as possible.

 

  • Though the solution is practical, it is only accessible through one platform and there is confusion about the correct helpline number (Peta, 2022).

Connecting to local NGOs through Google Maps

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  • Google can provide an individual with all the nearby NGOs and Animal Shelters based on the location of the users.

 

  • It also provides the users with addresses and contact details quickly. The main issue with this is the lack of verification of the information being provided to the individuals ( Google search, 2022).

Use of social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram

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  • A lot of animal lovers use Social Media to report injured animals by tagging the necessary organizations.

 

  • Through the method is accessible to all it is not efficient and quick due to high traffic and lack of specificity on social media. The content shared on social media has a high chance of getting lost amount the pool of other content (Instagram, 2022).

PetNest reports animal abuse

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  • The website of PetNest allows users to report animal abuse which is then sent to the Animal Welfare Board of India or the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

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  • The feature adds value to the overall website. The main issue with this system is that it can only be accessed with the website of PetNest which is primarily not an animal welfare organization (PetNet, 2022).

Blue Cross WhatsApp link

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  • The Blue Cross of India has introduced the 'Click to Rescue' service on WhatsApp in Chennai, to facilitate the rescue of ill and injured animals across the city. The organisation has created a WhatsApp link on the contact page of their website. Another way that one can use it is with the help of the direct WhatsApp number mentioned on the social medias of Blue Cross.

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  • One of the main plus points of this is the ease of use and easy location and image sharing options. The main issue with this is the lack of popularity and easy of access for the users (Blue Cross India, 2022).

Let it wag

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  • Let It Wag is an app that lets people help an animal in distress, meet other pet parents, and leetspeak vets and rescue related help. Once a profile is created, users can access their timeline about rescued animal up for adoption or an animal in distress. 

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  • One of the main benefits of Let it wag is that it offers a community to help all rescue needs by connecting like-minded people. One of the main issues with Let it wag is that it requires downloading by the users during a situation that can be considered an emergency (Let it Wag, 2022).

Data Collection and Analysis

Responders - Affinity map

The survey had 103 respondents out of which 71 could go through the screener. The age group of 18 to 61 years, though most of the participants were between the ages of 18 to 35 years.

Pain points

  • Inability to help an animal due to fear.

  • Limited awareness of how to help a stray animal.

  • Lack of online data based on verification organizations to contact.

  • Excessive time of response or no response from the other side.

  • Lack of information about the urgency of the situation.

Goals

  • Easy means to find and reach the right medical help.

  • Awareness building about animal abuse.

  • Using social media for awareness building and efficient reporting.

  • A means of filtering out reported cases on social media platforms.

Reporters - Empathy map

The interview was conducted on a call with 7 individuals who are currently working as animal welfare volunteers or rescuers.

Pain points

  • Limited volunteers in every locality to offer immediate help and spread information.

  • Difficulty finding the location of a reported animal.

  • Limited information and lack of contact with the reporter when receiving reports.

  • Lack of accessibility and awareness about WhatsApp reporting groups among people.

  • Difficulty determining the urgency of a report made.

  • Mixing up urgent reports with non-urgent reports due to limited information.

  • Increased involvement of common people

  • More accurate and faster reporting.

  • Developing a common bridge between common people and first responders.

  • An effective way of collecting and sharing immediate contact details of the reporter.

Goals

II. Define

Observations from both the stakeholders

  • From the pain points and goals of both the stakeholders, we were able to see two things.

  • Both the user groups have more or less the same core goal, which is to help the animals in need

  • The pain points of one sample group are linked to the pain points of the other user group. A better understanding of this could be done through personal development and scenario mapping.

Persona 1 - Reporter

Persona 2 - Responder

Scenario mapping

Final problem areas to work on

Problem areas of the reporters 

  • The reporters felt the absence of a common platform for ensured reporting.

  • Little information about the right people and organizations to contact.

Problem areas of the responders

  • The reporters felt the absence of a common platform for ensured reporting.

  • Little information about the right people and organizations to contact.

Common problem areas

  • While reports have complained about delayed replays from 1st responders the 1st responders have complained about the delayed decimation of information about reported cases.

  • Both reporters and responders mentioned of slow communication with each other about important details post reporting.

III. Ideate

Brainstorming for the right platform

Keeping in mind the needs of both the stakeholders for this project the best product offer could be a hybrid platform which is a meeting ground between a website and an app.​

What can be created - Humans for animal

A hybrid platform

(Combination of mobile website and app)

Mobile website -

(Focusing on the reporters)

The website side of the platform can be beneficial for reporters as its websites are

 

  • Easy to access and find

  • Do not require downloading

  • Good for reporting emergencies

Mobile application -

(Focusing on the responders)

The app side of the platform can be primarily beneficial for the responders as apps

 

  • Can offer regular updates to the users

  • Can be useful for maintaining a log of all reports.

  • Good for regular use.

IV. Prototype

Features for the website

  • No sign in and log in for reporting keeping in mind the website will be used in emergencies.

  • Allowing users to make separate reports for medical emergencies as they generally require the most urgent response.

  • Providing users with a form of details with every report to ensure all necessary information gets passed on to the responders.

  • Informing the reporters about the status of their report and the information of the responder taking care of their report.

  • Allowing responders to check their previous reports and their status through the website without creating an account.

  • ​Offering location-based contacts of vets, emergency hospitals, and ambulances, verified by the 1st responders themselves on the website.

Features for the app

  • Notifying the responders whenever an emergency report is made.

  • Colour coding notifications and reports based on urgency by utilizing colour psychology. For example, all the notifications for trauma and accident reports will be colour coded red as their reports are urgent and red is the colour of urgency.

  • Allowing reporters to keep a check on the cased they have taken up till now and their current status (completed and pending) along with the contacts of the reporters.

  • Allowing reports to share their list of verified and helpful contacts.

  • The majority of the reporters share an editable Google document or Google sheet with each other containing needs and city/town based contacts. New contacts can be added and old invalid ones can be deleted from the shared documents. These shared docs offer great help to reporters and can turn out to be helpful to common individuals as well if shared during need.

Digital wireframes - Website

Digital wireframes - App

Design elements for the project

Final Designs - Website

Final Designs - App

V. Test

The testing phase has been done through 2 usability studies, one for the app and one for the website, with 3 participants each. Both the studies were moderated and were done virtually. The individuals were asked to go through one or multiple tasks and then were asked questions about their experience.

Usability study for website

The usability study was done with the hi-fi wireframes of the mobile website. The study had 3 participants and they were tasked to make an emergency report to help a severely injured kitten. The issues of both the stakeholders were exchanged with each other as well.

About the participants

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  • Animal lovers or people empathetic toward animals.

  • Not connected to any animal help organization like NGOs or shelters.

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The report included people between the age of 18 and 35 years, active users of the internet and belonged to tire two and tire one cities.

Findings

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  • Only one button to make any kind of report medical or otherwise.

  • Replacing the text box feature to communicate the issue and reason for reporting with a checklist of all possible issues that are possible.

Usability study for app

The usability study was done with the hi-fi wireframes of the mobile app. The study had 3 participants and they were tasked to accept an emergency report and add a list of emergency contacts to the database of the website.

About the participants

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  • Volunteers and rescuers working with animal shelters and NGOs

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The report included people between the age of 18 and 35 years, active users of the internet and belonged to tire two and tire one cities.

Findings

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  • Some medical emergencies are more urgent than others, especially the cases of trauma and accidents. Thus further colour coding and prioritizing can be done keeping this in mind.

  • Report description to be presented in points to ensure it's easy to understand.

Checklist and segregation of priority from reporters end, and singular report button (Changes in website)

Colour coding reports based on 3 degrees of urgency (Changes in-app)

Conclustion

By looking at the project till now we have been able to understand the users, along with their key pain points and goals about the subject of the project. We have also been able to come up with Humans For Animals, a hybrid web and app-based platform to help the responders connect better with the reporters.

The project can be further extended to -

 

  • Adding more features to the existing solution by incorporating in-app call and messaging services.

  • Extending the scope project of the to the users above 35 years.

Future Scope

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