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With over 3,000 pets placed a year, it’s safe to say that the Austin Humane Society’s dog-and-cat operation has given thousands of new best friends over the years. They receive an astonishing 32,000 visitors each year while more than 600 volunteers work tirelessly to find good pet homes, educate the community and raise money for the organization. But austinhumanesociety.org did not reflect the shelter’s whimsical tenants or provide the high-level functionality needed to engage users and establish a digital presence. And while AHS excelled at animal placement and man power, they lacked the interactive stature to reach adopters online.

Website URL: www.austinhumanesociety.org

It’s a Ruff World Out There
Pixeldust put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the development of austinhumanesociety.org. Since Door Number 3 provided the design, we got to work building an easy-to-use website that would ultimately serve to drive adoptions, improve fundraising and increase the number of donors and volunteers. AHS wanted their new website to really reach out to constituents and present their animals in a more personable way.

I’ll Take That One
Built on a Drupal platform, austinhumanesociety.org now features an interactive pet grid where future adopters can view and sort pets by color, size, age, breed and several other features. We integrated audio and video functionality so potential adopters can listen to a song or watch a video describing each pet. We incorporated full social media functionality so users can share pet postings across all popular social networks, and a custom favorites feature so users are free to see their favorite animals any time by clicking the leash in the lower right corner of every page. We also built a custom Feral Cat application for users to schedule feral cat operations online and receive more information.

Home Sweet Home
The goal of the austinhumanesociety.org redesign was to increase user engagement and identify the organization online. The interactive experience Pixeldust created for the Austin Humane Society provides future adopters with the tools that define and educate their adoptive experience. To date, the redesigned site has received over 10,000 unique page views and connected over 100 pets and owners.

Results
Online donations have nearly doubled since the campaign launched. The new AHS website is being sited as an industry model by the national pet adoption software, PetPoint.