ROAMIE: An Animal Shelter Technology Platform

Role: Product & Design Lead

Background: Roamie is a startup that seeks to revolutionize the technology available to the animal shelter industry in order to keep animals out of shelter, connect people with pets, and equip and empower shelter staff with tools to succeed. I met the Founder of Roamie serendipitously through the HASS Coalition Tools & Tech Advisory Group. I had focused on a very similar project for my Masters Thesis and our ideas on how to improve the shelter industry were so closely aligned it was too perfect to not help out! I’ve been leading the design strategy and team of 3 designers through discovery, ideation, validation and prototyping in preparation for our first round of funding.

Outcome:

Leading discovery and research strategy with 2 Pilot shelters (El Paso Animal Services and Austin Pets Alive!) and 2 National Coalitions
Collaborating with team of designers, engineers and product managers to build and validate MVP of product

Process

1. Stakeholder Interviews - Foster Parents and Shelter Staff

Conducted 15 interviews with both foster parents and shelter staff to identify pain points, opportunities and gather insight into fostering process.

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2. Ecosystem Map of Shelter Industry

Created ecosystem map through interviews and auto-ethnographic study. Using as resource to think about high level product strategy and for onboarding new team members.

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3. Persona and Journey Creation

Crafted 6 personas based on interview insights and findings on both foster parent and shelter staff sides. Carried forward through UX design work and product strategy to account for key players in ecosystem.

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4. Workflow Mapping to Drive Product Decisions

Facilitating conversations with internal team and pilot shelters using workflow and journey maps to make informed design and product decisions.

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5. Low-fi Wireframing

Created low-fi wireframes to validate with staff and pilot shelters. Overseeing creation of Design System and infusing branding into high fidelity prototypes.

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6. High-fi Wireframing

Screens for shelter staff users to managed animals and people, look at traits & matches, send communication to foster parents.