An app to make people safer at night

Feeling afraid should never prevent a person from living their life to the fullest. This is why SafeCase was created by me and three other UX-designers. We had noticed that a lot of our friends did not feel safe walking alone outdoors at night and chose to investigate this further. By collecting and analysing qualitative data from our users our hypothesis was confirmed. In the meantime we collected a lot of information about why people in Stockholm felt unsafe. To organise our data we used an affinity diagram. By doing this we saw that the main problem we needed to solve was: how do we make our user visible and seen by their friends and family - but still discreet and doesn't attract unwanted attention from other people they don't trust?

After a brainstorming session we had a lot of different ideas, everything from drones to illuminating umbrellas to a phone case. The last idea was the one we decided to continue with. This phone case featured an NFC-button allowing the user to notify friends through the app if they need help, in a way that is both quick and discreet. The application allowed the user to stay in contact with friends through chat or phone calls and sharing a GPS-location.

The first lo-fi prototype was created in Balsamiq and underwent extensive user-evaluation. We wanted to try and gather as much feedback as we could in the early stages of the prototyping-phase. In that way we could identify issues with the design or its functionality early on. Insights from testing was incorporated in the design of the Hi-Fi prototype, created with the prototyping tool Justinmind. The final prototype was created by a combination of methods. Partly Justinmind, HTML & CSS, JavaScript and a 3D printed case with an attached NFC-button for notification handling.

Don´t forget to check out our poster

Or read the brochure to find out more!