As animal lovers and long-standing fans, we were delighted when Dogster approached us about working on the major repositioning of both the Dogster and Catster sites. After six years growing and serving a passionate pet-enthusiast community, the team had exciting and ambitious plans to reach a wider range of people. We had a terrific time helping them go for best in show.

And, as Top Dog & CEO Ted Rheingold told Techcrunch, “Community services are great for adding tons of content, but not for organizing it.” The sites had grown organically over the years, creating a very comfortable environment for experienced members to interact, but potentially daunting to casual visitors. New people arriving through search engines daily will respond to clear, engaging information even if they aren’t ready to dig in and create an online profile for their dog or cat.

We worked with the Dogster team to develop a strategy and a structure to re-organize their content around major topic areas, while retaining a special place for the vibrant community. Each new area, covering a specific subject such as health or training, features a mix of expert information from professionals and the best stuff from the community, curated by staff editors.

While creating clear, task-oriented paths through credible information, we didn’t want to lose the whimsy and, well, the humanity that made these sites so appealing and popular in the first place. So, we looked for places to add touches of fun to the interface and include a lot more photography overall. It’s safe to say that people love looking at pictures of dogs and cats on the Internet, especially on a site that is actually about dogs or cats.

We also made room for Dogster’s growing roster of partnerships, including Petfinder adoptions and Hunch’s personalized decision-making widgets.

Integrating such huge changes into an established community-oriented website is a technical and communication challenge. We were incredibly impressed by the speed with which the Dogster team was able to roll out the initial set of design changes, as well as their timely and open communication with the existing members. We look forward to seeing both sites continue to evolve with ongoing development and user feedback.

Tweet | Written by Erika Hall on June 22, 2010 |