Problem

The start of my thesis project came a little less than a year after the passing of my pet rabbit, Gracie. In the time between his passing (yes Gracie was a boy) and my thesis project, I had casually volunteered a few times at my closest rabbit rescue because I missed interacting with my rabbit. I hadn’t known rabbit rescues existed. I found myself learning so many things about rabbit care that I hadn’t known prior to volunteering. I found resources online that backed up the new things I learned. I felt a sense of guilt when I realized Gracie’s life could have been longer and happier if I had just known what he really needed.

I was very bothered by the apparent lack of common knowledge relating to rabbit care. I decided to dive deeper into this issue.

After conducting some research, I was able to conclude that future rabbit owners and current rabbit owners often do not have accurate knowledge of the needs and behaviors of pet rabbits and are unaware of what they need to prepare for as owners. This frequently leads to pet rabbit abuse/mistreatment and/or abandonment.

Problem Statement:

How can young adults and families be educated about the needs and behaviors of rabbits to ensure a healthy, loving environment and to prevent rabbits from being abandoned and/or going to shelters and rescues?

Target Audience

My target audience was young adults and families because they are the most likely to become first time rabbit owners and need the most guidance.

Research

My research included a casual conversation with Ohio House Rabbit Rescue, an in-depth survey, and observations.

Rabbits are the third most abandoned pet after dogs and cats. Ohio House Rabbit Rescue firmly believed that the most common reasons for rabbits being abandoned or given up had to do with misconceptions owners had when getting rabbits or involved misinformation given to owners by the places they got their rabbits from (pet stores or breeders).

I conducted a survey mostly made up of extended response questions to gain thorough insights. I wanted to test people’s knowledge and see what misinformation and misconceptions were most common. I asked questions on what people like and dislike about owning a rabbit, what they believe a rabbit’s environment should look like, what supplies they need, and opinions on pet stores. I had a total of 52 respondents with 34 having experience with owning a pet rabbit.

The responses to my survey included contradictions. Some respondents with experience with rabbits carried the same information as me. Some respondents with rabbit experience believed the same misconceptions I had when first getting my rabbit from a pet store. Responses seemed a bit all over the place. One interesting thing I found was four individuals admitted to converting from cage environments to free-roam home environments after learning negative impacts of cages.

Other research I conducted involved visiting pet stores to see how prevalent harmful foods in pet stores were. I visited four different pet stores and only one strictly had healthy foods for rabbits. At the pet store I bought Gracie at eleven years before, I found they were still selling rabbits. Their enclosures did not include enough hay, there were no toys or anything to give the rabbits stimulation, and the enclosures were open for any visitor to pick up/man handle a frightened rabbit. I also decided to ask an employee what all I would need to get for a pet rabbit. The woman seemed to not know what to do other than to point me to an aisle with cages. At this point, pet stores felt like a big source of misinformation especially when thinking back to my experience of buying Gracie and how the experience didn’t change eleven years later.

Design Process and Testing

I designed little booklets with cute, minimalist illustrations and with helpful information on rabbit care. I also designed informational posters with the same aesthetic.

I grouped information I gathered from my research into four categories for the booklets and posters: Environment, Behavior, Diet, and Maintenance. All common misinformation/misconceptions found in my research were easily categorized in these groups. I believed splitting up the information into categories would be less overwhelming for new/future rabbit owners seeking knowledge.

I tested my design prototypes with participants in my survey that did not have experience owning a rabbit, but planned on getting one in the future. The participants I interviewed overall showed positive feelings towards the style of the designs. They also liked the idea of having a physical booklet to look back on.

Design Solution

After I thoroughly went through all my research and composed it all, I created my final design solution, “Mission Hoppy Healthy Home”.

Mission Hoppy Healthy Home was made to address all the misinformation and misconceptions of rabbit needs and behaviors and put out accurate, helpful information for future rabbit owners and current rabbit owners. By combatting misinformation, more domestic rabbits would live out their lives in healthy, loving home environments.

I designed four booklets under the Mission Healthy Hoppy Home name as well as two informational posters. These booklets and posters would be presented in the form of displays in pet stores, rabbit rescues, and shelters that carry rabbits. Even if a future rabbit owner would not get a rabbit from a pet store or rescue, they are places rabbit owners may go to pick up supplies as shown in my initial survey.