Lifelong Animal Protection (LAP) Website Redesign

Lifelong Animal Protection (LAP) is a dedicated non-profit organisation committed to sheltering, socialising, and rehoming abandoned animals into loving families. Relying solely on donations and volunteers, LAP’s mission is both humanitarian and action-driven. Their original website, however, presented significant usability barriers that discouraged potential adopters, donors, and volunteers from engaging fully with the charity.

THE CHALLENGE

LAP faced a critical challenge: its website was outdated, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Benchmark analysis revealed that compared to competitor animal shelters, LAP’s site lacked responsiveness and a seamless user experience. Users struggled with overlapping information and a complex information architecture that made it hard to find shelter animals, complete adoption processes, or easily locate donation and volunteering options.

User research through interviews highlighted consistent frustrations. Prospective adopters found the adoption forms overly long and complicated, breaking their journey and reducing completed adoptions. Information about shelter animals was sparse online, often requiring users to turn to social media to get timely updates. Volunteers and donors also reported unclear and misleading information, especially around how to get involved or make contributions.

Synthesizing these insights into an affinity map uncovered pain points related to navigation complexity, missing or scattered information, and cumbersome task flows. Two key user personas emerged:

• Caretaker Claire, focused on fostering and socialising animals but frustrated by difficult information access and redundant processes

• Generous George, keen to contribute but confused by poor guidance around volunteering and donations

The combined effect of these issues was a diminished user experience that impeded LAP’s core missions of adoption, donation, and volunteer engagement.

THE SOLUTION

The redesign took a usability-first approach, starting with mid-fidelity wireframes to prioritize user flows over visual style. Guided by LAP’s core values—humanitarian, kind, action-oriented, and educational—the visual identity was refreshed with a moodboard of soft, bright colors and a minimalist aesthetic to evoke calm and trust.

A new brand style tile introduced clean fonts (Montserrat and Jost) for readability and serenity. LAP’s outdated logo was revamped into a sleeker, playful emblem consistent with the new brand, bolstering user confidence confirmed later in usability testing.

Key redesign features directly addressed user pain points:

• Simplified, illustrated adoption process prominently featured on the homepage, giving users instant clarity

• Removal of all complicated forms, replaced with an online booking system accessible on each animal’s profile card, allowing direct appointments to meet animals

• Clear navigation with a strong Donation call-to-action and an intuitive donation page offering one-time, recurring, and sponsor-an-animal options

• Streamlined volunteer sign-up via an embedded online calendar showing LAP’s schedule, with automated confirmation emails

High-fidelity prototypes underwent usability testing with five participants. Results showed dramatic improvements: the System Usability Scale (SUS) score soared from 49.5 on the original site to 94.5 post-redesign—an over 90% increase in usability. Participants praised the calming color scheme, intuitive navigation, and rich animal profiles that included backgrounds, personalities, and multiple photos.

Feedback on UX writing and interface layout was systematically gathered and prioritized, leading to iterations focused on quick wins while maintaining a roadmap for future feature enhancements.

The redesign has not only transformed LAP’s website into a warm, inviting, and easy-to-use platform but also empowered the organisation to better connect with its community of adopters, donors, and volunteers—fueling its vital mission to protect and rehome animals in need.

Lifelong Animal Protection (LAP) Website Redesign

Lifelong Animal Protection (LAP) is a dedicated non-profit organisation committed to sheltering, socialising, and rehoming abandoned animals into loving families. Relying solely on donations and volunteers, LAP’s mission is both humanitarian and action-driven. Their original website, however, presented significant usability barriers that discouraged potential adopters, donors, and volunteers from engaging fully with the charity.

THE CHALLENGE

LAP faced a critical challenge: its website was outdated, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Benchmark analysis revealed that compared to competitor animal shelters, LAP’s site lacked responsiveness and a seamless user experience. Users struggled with overlapping information and a complex information architecture that made it hard to find shelter animals, complete adoption processes, or easily locate donation and volunteering options.

User research through interviews highlighted consistent frustrations. Prospective adopters found the adoption forms overly long and complicated, breaking their journey and reducing completed adoptions. Information about shelter animals was sparse online, often requiring users to turn to social media to get timely updates. Volunteers and donors also reported unclear and misleading information, especially around how to get involved or make contributions.

Synthesizing these insights into an affinity map uncovered pain points related to navigation complexity, missing or scattered information, and cumbersome task flows. Two key user personas emerged:

• The Cozy Caretaker, focused on fostering and socialising animals but frustrated by difficult information access and redundant processes

• The Generous Volunteer, keen to contribute but confused by poor guidance around volunteering and donations

The combined effect of these issues was a diminished user experience that impeded LAP’s core missions of adoption, donation, and volunteer engagement.

THE SOLUTION

The redesign took a usability-first approach, starting with mid-fidelity wireframes to prioritize user flows over visual style. Guided by LAP’s core values—humanitarian, kind, action-oriented, and educational—the visual identity was refreshed with a moodboard of soft, bright colors and a minimalist aesthetic to evoke calm and trust.

A new brand style tile introduced clean fonts (Montserrat and Jost) for readability and serenity. LAP’s outdated logo was revamped into a sleeker, playful emblem consistent with the new brand, bolstering user confidence confirmed later in usability testing.

Key redesign features directly addressed user pain points:

• Simplified, illustrated adoption process prominently featured on the homepage, giving users instant clarity

• Removal of all complicated forms, replaced with an online booking system accessible on each animal’s profile card, allowing direct appointments to meet animals

• Clear navigation with a strong Donation call-to-action and an intuitive donation page offering one-time, recurring, and sponsor-an-animal options

• Streamlined volunteer sign-up via an embedded online calendar showing LAP’s schedule, with automated confirmation emails

High-fidelity prototypes underwent usability testing with five participants. Results showed dramatic improvements: the System Usability Scale (SUS) score soared from 49.5 on the original site to 94.5 post-redesign—an over 90% increase in usability. Participants praised the calming color scheme, intuitive navigation, and rich animal profiles that included backgrounds, personalities, and multiple photos.

Feedback on UX writing and interface layout was systematically gathered and prioritized, leading to iterations focused on quick wins while maintaining a roadmap for future feature enhancements.

The redesign has not only transformed LAP’s website into a warm, inviting, and easy-to-use platform but also empowered the organisation to better connect with its community of adopters, donors, and volunteers—fueling its vital mission to protect and rehome animals in need.