OAR — Mia Portfolio

UI/UX | Brand identity | Collaborative | Website Redesign

Ohio Alleycat Resource

Ohio Alleycat Rescue (OAR) is a non-profit animal shelter located in Cincinnati, OH.
OAR provides a variety of services for guests, including but not limited to spay/neuter, adoption, foster, and empowering the community with outreach, education, and support.

Accessibility is a core factor in design. Without website designs that are inclusive, a huge portion of the potential audience is immediately excluded. Designing with accessibility in mind promotes inclusion, heightens a company’s awareness of its audience, and keeps the company from falling into extreme legal trouble.

The official website for OAR fails to meet basic WCAGguidelines. As a non-profit, budget restraints and limited resources may keep them from creating a perfectly accessible website.

On a team of three, we worked both independently and collaboratively during our research phase. The supportive research was crucial to ensure that the design process went smoothly and that all essential guidelines were met. Further, every potential barrier our personas could face was crucial to address.

WCAG: Accessible designs start here. Diving deep into the outlined criteria, I familiarized myself with the ADA compliance and level A - AAA criteria.

AXE Con: I attended a virtual session for Axe Con 2026, hearing professionals speak on disability advocacy and design.

ALT Text: Although we are not programming the website, it is essential to show the implications of alternative text. When images are smaller, we rely on a mouse hover to display alternate text. The process of writing alternate text is foreign to me, so research was imperative.

For building our prototype, we focused on one persona's task flow. This is Jane’s task flow as she navigates the website to view available cats and fill out an interest form.

A three-phase process necessary before establishing the branding and high-fidelity prototype.

Phase 1: Paper prototyping
Sketches were created individually, allowing each member to bring their own ideas to the table.

Phase 2: Site Map

Phase 3: Low-fi and Mid-fi Prototyping

During our visual exploration, it was important to us that we kept OAR’s familiarity as a friendly and approachable resource. The previous visual design system relied on hues of blue, which are deemed inaccessible. Now, the new system incorporates WCAG-friendly colors, contrasting colors, and a clear way to distinguish call-to-action points.

Feel free to interact with the prototype below!