Gifford Cat Shelter
Staying organised whilst helping cats in need.
UI/UX Design ・ Redesign Case Study
Gifford Cat Shelter is a no kill cat shelter located in Brighton, MA. This shelter helps take in cats in need and to pairs them with a loving family. I currently volunteer here in my free time!
Role
Designer
Time
2 Months, Sept-Oct 2025
Software
Figma
Currently
Onboarding volunteers have trouble navigating the portal.
The current volunteering portal is quite outdated and, therefore, difficult to navigate. I found myself taking a lot longer to locate tasks that I wanted to achieve which created a frustrating experience for me.
The Challenge
How can I streamline the tasks that volunteers need for more efficiency?
Research
Reaching out to fellow volunteers.
I decided to reach out to some of the other volunteers to gain insight on their opinions on the portal (mainly to see if im not the only one). Many responded with similar concerns and challenges they faced when using the portal for the first time and even using it now. Here are the main concerns mentioned:
Confusing Navigation
Confusing language in the nav bar
makes users take a longer time to figure out the platforms functionality.
Unused Elements
Many users don't ever use certain pages in the navbar. This feels cluttered and unnecessary due to the random features .
Forgetting Hours
Users often forget to put their hours in and will need to use their to own calendar or memory to remind themselves when they worked.
Volunteers only complete a handful of tasks on the portal.
From all 3 main challenges, we can conclude that they all stem from a desire for a simplified version of the portal. Volunteers aren't interested in all the extra add-ons, and only truly complete a handful of tasks on the portal. To make this experience easier, we need to eliminate unnecessary features and improve and highlight the important ones.
Heres a checklist of tasks that volunteers complete on this portal:
Volunteer Todos!
Schedule shift hours
Remember when the shift is
Log completed shift hours
Implementation
Improving navigation
To ensure users can complete their core tasks efficiently and without distraction, I redesigned the navigation bar and reorganized the site structure to highlight only the most essential features.
Scheduling shifts requires users to jump around a lot.
The process of managing volunteer shifts is currently unintuitive. To sign up, users must first navigate to the "Opportunities" page to access the shift calendar. After registering, they must switch to the "Home" page to view upcoming shifts, and then go to the "Schedule" page to make cancellations. This scattered flow forces volunteers to jump between multiple pages for related tasks, leading to a confusing and inefficient user experience.
To reduce confusion caused by navigating between multiple pages, I consolidated all key shift-related tasks into a single, streamlined scheduling page. This allows volunteers to sign up, view, and manage their shifts more efficiently in one place.
Forgetful volunteers have trouble remembering to imput their hours.
Currently, the volunteer portal lacks features to help users track or recall their completed shifts. As a result, volunteers must rely on their memory to log hours, often struggling to remember exact dates and durations, which makes this task prone to error and easy to forget.
Adding a reminder at the top of the portal streamlines the process by allowing volunteers to log their hours with a single click. This eliminates the need to remember past shift details, making the task significantly faster and more effortless.
Final Product
Streamlined Volunteering Tasks
The improved volunteering portal delivers a more streamlined and intuitive experience, enabling volunteers to complete their tasks with ease. It eliminates the confusion, forgetfulness, and frustration that previously hindered simple actions.
Effortless Scheduling
Volunteers can now view available shifts, sign up, manage their scheduled shifts, and cancel them all from one page. This makes the scheduling process much easier and more efficient.
Easy Reminders
Volunteers no longer need to remember their past shift hours. With built-in reminders, the portal makes logging hours faster and more convenient.
Key Takeaways and Future Plan
It's not all about aesthetics.
I initially approached this redesign because I felt the portal looked outdated and visually unappealing. At first, I was focused purely on improving its aesthetics. However, as I spent more time interacting with it, I realized that my frustration wasn't just about how it looked—it was also about how it worked. The core functionality had usability issues that significantly impacted the user experience. This project taught me to step back from visual design and prioritize functionality, ensuring the redesign addressed real user needs and created meaningful improvements.
Next steps.
After completing the prototype, I presented it to my supervisors and staff members for feedback. While they responded positively and appreciated the improvements, they also expressed the need to carefully plan the implementation to avoid disrupting the volunteer workflow. As a result, the redesign has not yet been put into practice. However, I’m patiently awaiting the right time for them to integrate my design into the live portal.