Josh and I finally did it. We got together and said, “You know what? We’re going to make this happen.” Laptops fully charged and paws freshly wiped, we successfully redesigned a non-profit website together!

This past weekend, we were super proud to launch the new website for AHeinz57 Pet Rescue & Transport. This is an organization led by a passionate and determined woman named Amy Heinz, and supported by a connected group of volunteers. AHeinz57 volunteers travel all across the midwest to transport dogs to other rescues, and then bring back others into their care. They then divide and conquer by housing some at their Pit Stop and many others in foster homes. Strays, dogs up for euthanization and owner surrenders end up in the hands of AHeinz57. Although their past lives may have been awful, the team is dogged on giving them the best new lives and finding them forever homes.

Our dog, Luna, came from AHeinz57. From the days we started searching, we would check the website and Facebook page for new additions. While the old website had a lot of information, it was not doing justice for the hardworking individuals that give many hours to the precious pups that need help. I knew that Josh and I could provide something much better, and not necessarily one of those “anything is better” situations. I knew we could plan this out and support something I find so important—BEING GOOD TO DOGS!

We started the project back in February of this year. Valentine’s Day 2017 was all about the love of dogs for us. I came up with a revised site architecture, which included recategorizing some pages and combining others that were duplicated. We also thought through the user top tasks and how to set content hierarchies, especially on the home page. With these ideas in tow, we had our initial meeting and walked away with a project!

User Top Tasks

The key tasks that users need to complete are:

Adopt
Volunteer
Donate

Adding three buttons directly below the home page hero image quickly accomplishes the visibility of these tasks, along with a new, clean look. The tasks are called out in the navigation as well, which should give users the easy ability to find the pet that is right for them, or a way to get involved with the organization.

Most users of this website spend time looking over the adoptables page, and to put it simply, Josh worked his coding whiz-magic to improve the user interface (UI) of the page. Let me just show you the tail wag-worthy improvement.

It sits nicely with us.

Website Goals and Objectives

Adoptables viewing experience

It’s simple enough to say that the pet viewing experience was a top priority. We wanted to achieve a smoother user experience (UX) for prospective adopters. Users can also now share links to AHeinz57 pets on social media, and the pet name will show up in the preview!

AHeinz57 is embarking on a million dollar capital campaign

Donations are so important to the organization right now. Construction has already started on AHeinz57’s new facility and they’re hoping to raise $1.8 million to cover the costs. We used the plugin Give to setup donations on the site and are impressed with its functionality and features. Users no longer have to ‘add a donation to cart’—modern day is good!

Events are scannable and mobile-friendly

One thing about using a traditional grid-style calendar is that it is very difficult to have a seamless mobile experience. We updated the calendar, now called events, to list out events with their appropriate color-coded category, and pointed AHeinz57 to EventBrite to manage events. Our hope is that the events page is visited often so people know what’s happening and when in the community.

This was a meaningful project for us to work together on, and we so appreciate all the help we got from the AHeinz57 team, especially Amy, Jen and Becky, among many others. Please visit the site www.aheinz57.com and consider adopting or getting involved. There are a lot of opportunities to give back to the pups that make our lives whole.

Blog: Dogs