travel safe for women app
Make travelling home less stressful for women.
Overview:
Travelling alone is daunting for a woman, especially at night. 'juntos' join women together to help one another. "Together we are strong" is their motto.
"Can't you just walk in a crowded street?"
49% of women reported feeling unsafe walking alone after nightfall in a busy public place or on a quiet street near their home. It was never about the location, dangers lurk everywhere for them.
My boyfriend is working overtime and he can't drive me home....The path to the subway is so dark and scary to walk alone 😰
Objective
Develop safe travel options centered around women supporting women.​
Educational materials teach simple ways for women to protect themselves
Research Goals
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Research frustrations women feel towards the dangers of walking home alone
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Understand the needs users have in a safety app
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Analyze resources offered by existing competitors
Women's frustration towards this issue
How could doing a simple task such as walking home inflict such fear? Several reasons must be addressed and awareness must be raised. Thus, I've conducted research online on women's struggles.
User Needs
What users hope to get out of using juntos in their daily lives
Competitive Analysis
Using SWOT Analysis to study various safe travel apps within the market.
Building user empathy
The analysis of user opinions on the issue and competitive resources allowed me to visualize the features and user goals 'juntos' will achieve. The next step is to stand in the shoes of users and understand their needs.
User Persona
Based on the patterns seen in the user interviews I have developed 2 types of user personas:
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an office lady who walks to the subway after work.
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a college student who walks home alone after classes.
An office lady who walks to the subway after work primary persona.
A college student who walks home alone after classes secondary persona.
User Flow
The goal of "juntos" is to raise awareness for women worldwide about self-defence and ways to protect themselves in dangerous situations. It is also here to act as a bridge for women to support women.
Translating needs into features
From the touch points to needs from the empathizing phase, I've created a Product Feature Roadmap to outline specific app features and detail what each feature does.
Design & Prototype
Thus, with the user preferences and priorities of the app in mind I began designing the features and user interface of 'juntos'. With "juntos" focusing on the:
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Providing a SOS alert/send your location to your emergency contact
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Allow users to find different ways to lessen the dangers of walking home alone
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Educate users on ways to defend themselves
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Sketches show the main features of the juntos app
A fun & quirky UI design
I wanted to focus on 'juntos'' branding which is inclusivity and women empowerment. The design is shown in a lighthearted manner. It is stressful enough to feel unsafe, thus complex designs and striking colours are avoided.
Purple is the colour of "International Women's Day" and represents dignity and justice. Blue is considered the most soothing colour. The design of the characters is meant to capture the diversity of personalities and styles of women
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Carpool
Find someone within the area to carpool with or request to carpool with someone
Walk Together
Find people to connect with to walk together to a location with.
Walk Alone
Enter your desired locations and choose a route between the safe and well-lit route generated by the app
Usability Testing
juntos's UI needs to be easy to navigate and have all the vital means to call for help in a strategic position.
Therefore, it is important to test the product on issues and effectiveness to ensure users will integrate this app into their daily lives.
Revision & final design
The testing showed that there should be indications of the duration of the tutorials so people can choose how much time they wish to take to learn.
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On the tutorial page, details of the classes should be displayed to let users quickly access the time spent learning the courses
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Illustrations of the self-defense moves in the tutorial page to allow users to better visualize the course
Sign In/Sign Up Pages & Menus
Explore Features & Trail Details
Navigation Feature Pages
Project Takeaways
I get paranoid when walking at night alone too. Often I'd fantasize about an app that would help with that. This was exactly what that was. I've never made a navigation application before and this was a great learning opportunity!
Some takeaways:
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Use existing patterns to decrease the cognitive load. Creating unique interactive features isn't necessary in navigating apps like these where users prefer familiarity with the interface.
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When stuck take a break and come back. When I was developing the design for this product, I had a creative block on what colour scheme to use. I took a few minutes break and revisited the project while seeking inspiration from various media, e.g. posters, web designs and UI online.
