At A Glance
Civic infrastructure for animals in distress
PawPew is a free Indian platform for reporting injured street animals, reuniting missing pets, and getting first-aid guidance in the minutes before a vet is reached. It treats rescue as a coordination problem, not an awareness campaign.
India already has people who will stop for a dog in the road. What it does not have is a shared object those people can hand to a verified responder: a case, with a photo, a pin, an urgency, and a history. Social posts are not that object. They are a shout.
The product story is the conversion of a shout into a case, and of a case into a closed loop — even when the loop closes with “still waiting,” because waiting with a status is different from waiting in the dark.
Challenge
Civic Tech Product
Focus
Animal rescue & coordination
Real problem
Scattered rescue posts, no tracking
Goal
Report, track, and coordinate rescue cases
Deliverables
Live product, rescue reporting flow, case tracking, AI first-aid guidance
The Challenge
How might we turn scattered rescue posts into trackable cases that reach verified responders?
Help already exists — in WhatsApp groups, Facebook posts, and personal phone books. The design problem is structure: a case that can be found, claimed, and followed without leaking a phone number.
High-emotion reporting is a known failure mode. People over-share (phone numbers, home addresses) or under-share (no location, no photo, “near the market”). Rescuers waste the golden hour calling dead numbers. The animal is still in the street.
We framed the job as logistics under panic, not as content. The reporter is not a journalist. They are a witness who needs the next action, then a way to leave without abandoning the animal.
Constraint
Must work on a phone in bad light, with one hand, for a user who has never heard of PawPew until this minute.
Job
Citizens will not hand a case to an anonymous inbox. Partners must be verified. Numbers must stay private.
Failure
The first minutes belong to first aid. If a partner is late, the product still has to be useful.
Role
A public case is about the animal. The reporter is not content.
Problem
Good people, unstructured tools
When someone finds an injured street dog or a lost pet, the usual route is a social post. Those posts get buried, expose numbers, and give no way to see whether the animal was helped.
“I reported the animal, but I don't know what happened next.”
Core design insight
The feed is the enemy of a rescue. A post that is two hours old is already archaeology. There is no owner, no status, no duplicate detection. Three people may call the same inactive volunteer. No one updates the original post when the dog is moved.
The emotional design problem is worse than the information one. Witnesses feel they “did their part” by posting. Then they refresh and see silence. Silence, in this context, feels like cruelty. A timeline that says “notified — waiting for a partner” is not marketing. It is care.
Scattered, unstructured social posts
Hard to find verified rescuers fast
No tracking after reporting
Time lost calling inactive numbers
No first-aid guidance in the first minutes
People
Two sides of the same case
Citizens create cases. Verified PawPartners accept them. The interface has to serve both without making either party feel they are shouting into a void.
The citizen is time-poor and distressed. The partner is time-poor and already in the field. Designing for both on one platform is usually how products become noisy. We split the jobs: a short create-flow for citizens, a live board for partners, and a public timeline that both can read without negotiating a chat.
Primary
Citizens who spot injured or abandoned animals · Pet parents with a missing pet · People who want to foster or rehome
Secondary
Verified NGOs, shelters and independent rescuers · Volunteers who want a live board of nearby cases
Approach
Calm actions, then a timeline
The first minute may belong to PawMini AI. The next belongs to a structured report. After that, the case page is the source of truth — not a chat thread.
We wrote the journey as a story that can stop at any beat and still give something. Stop after AI chat: the person has first-aid steps. Stop after the report: a case exists even if no one accepts yet. Stop after accept: the reporter can go home and still see the animal’s status.
Tone was a design system, not a voice guideline. No red alarms. No “URGENT!!” chrome. Urgency is a field on the case, not a scream in the UI. The product has to lower heart rate so the photo is in focus and the pin is on the right street.
01
Spot
Finds an injured animal
02
Ask AI
Calm first-aid steps
03
Report
Photo, urgency, location
04
Track
Sees case status
05
Rescue
Partner takes over
Open PawRescue
Upload a photo
Choose species and urgency
Share GPS or an address
A trackable public case is created
Nearby PawPartners accept and update it
Research Insights: Insights sorted from research into observations, pain points and ideas.
User Flow: The path a user takes through the product, including the decisions along the way.
Solution
One platform, five tools, one tone
Rescue, missing pets, first aid, NGO dispatch and even playdates live together — but the reporting flow stays short. The case timeline is the product.
PawRescue is the spine. PawBridge handles the social graph of lost and found without turning phone numbers into public property. PawMini is the product’s conscience: it works when the board is empty. PawPartner is the trust layer. PawMatch is the lighter sibling — same animals, lower stakes — so the brand is not only crisis.
PawRescue
Report injured animals with photo, location, urgency and transparent tracking.
PawBridge
Missing pets, sightings and abandoned animals. Phone numbers stay private.
PawMini AI
Free, calm, multilingual first-aid guidance for the critical first minutes.
PawPartner
Verified rescuers get a live board of nearby cases they can accept.
PawMatch
Swipe to match nearby pets of the same species for playdates.
Privacy by default
Contact details are gated. The public sees the animal, not the reporter.
Principles
If a screen made a reporter feel watched, late, or stupid, it was wrong — even if it collected better data. Completeness of the case is secondary to the person finishing the case.
Calm over panic
/
Clear actions, friendly language, no alarmist chrome. Stress is already in the street.
Trust through verification
/
Only approved PawPartners can respond. Open posting is how numbers leak.
Always show what is next
/
Status tracking keeps reporters informed after they close the tab.
Keep reporting effortless
/
Capture the essential details without slowing someone down in an urgent situation.
Make every case accountable
/
Every report should have a visible status and a clear next step, even when help is delayed.
Information architecture: How the product is organised, from entry points down to the deepest screens.
Decisions
Public cases are a privacy risk. We still made them public — with the reporter stripped out because a hidden case cannot be found by a second good Samaritan. Private numbers are slower for partners; we still hid them because one leaked number ends trust for the next hundred reports.
Soft blue-green surfaces, generous white space, rounded cards, and copy that stays practical. The product should lower the pulse of someone standing over an injured animal.
Outcome
The honest read: PawPew is only as strong as the partners in a city. Some users still finished the rescue themselves. That is not a UI bug; it is a network problem. Design’s job in that world is to keep the case useful, keep the number private, and keep first aid in the first minutes. Those are the parts we can stand behind.
What works
Could improve
Next
What this project taught
Solving coordination problems beats just raising awareness.
Verification and transparency build more trust than open posting.
Immediate value like AI first aid keeps users when humans are slow.
Clear status tracking matters most in high-emotion moments.
FAQ
Questions I get asked a lot
Anything else, just send me a note, I answer within a working day.