NOWW: NETWORK OF WOMEN WATCH

This case study focuses the Capstone 1 project for the development of a female safety app. The aim was to create a user-friendly and intuitive app that empowers women to enhance their safety

JUNE 2022: This was a multi-month, end-to-end design project that included each phase of the design process. The goal of this capstone project was to help sharpen my new UX and UI skills that I was learning throughout the course.

ROLE: Designer & Researcher

INDEX

  • THE CHALLENGE

  • RESEARCH & PLANNING

  • DESIGNING THE SOLUTION

  • CONCLUSION

OVERVIEW

THE CHALLENGE

Women often experience feelings of intimidation, fear & immense discomfort when subjected to catcalling or harassment. This poses a significant concern for their safety, especially when they are alone. If this harassment cannot be stopped I wanted to find another way for women to be warned prior to becoming a victim.

The challenge was to create effective systems through which a network of women can assist each other in signaling for help when faced with such situations. To achieve this, it was crucial to ascertain what makes woman uncomfortable during these encounters and determine their need for additional support or assistance.

RESEARCH & PLANNING

The research & synthesis techniques I used were:

  1. User interviews

  2. Secondary research

  3. Thematic Analysis

  4. Empathy Mapping

USER INTERVIEW

  • The interviews highlighted that the participants felt a need to remain vigilant and look out for warnings of threats. Some of the warnings the women looked out for were aggressive and quick movements, sexual comments, following & groups of men hanging out.

  • All participants said they would change their route if they knew a threat was on a particular street.

  • The participants mentioned the importance of bystander intervention & community support. They felt that more should be done to teach local communities how to look for signs of distress and teach victims what to do to keep themselves safe.

QUOTES


“When I am stressed or uncomfortable, I reach for my phone.”

“I tend to look out for other women when I am out in public.”

“ I try to avoid going out at night by myself at all costs.”

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Research questions I wanted to be answered:

  1. Why does harassment happen?

  2. What are the main factors causing danger and harm?

  3. How are women currently handling these scary encounters?

  4. What solutions are available to solve these ongoing issues?

QUOTES

“First, our culture repeatedly tells boys and men that one way to prove their masculinity is by putting someone else down. This is a form of hypermasculinity that relies on exerting power over people who are perceived as less valuable. Harassment is a way to make that happen. Second, so many of our pop culture images — things we see and hear in music, TV, videos, and movies — tell men and boys they have permission to think about women as sexually available. Mainstream pop culture uses tropes and old stereotypes about beauty and gender that [teach] us to judge women based on how sexy we think they are. Our culture sends chronic messages to boys and men that they are entitled to access other people’s bodies, invade personal space, and even to violate our most intimate realms with impunity or lack of awareness if that other person is perceived to be less powerful.” 

- Shira Tarrant, Ph.D.

  • Factors contributing to street harassment include hypermasculinity, media influence, power dynamics, and a sense of entitlement.

  • Harassment can lead to psychological trauma, loss of self-confidence, isolation, and anxiety.

  • Women often employ coping strategies like avoidance, distraction, and ignoring because of fear of escalation to sexual and physical violence.

  • Current solutions for women are limited. Some solutions include finding and entering a neutral space like a store or a local business, getting the attention of security, or calling a friend till they get home.

Thematic Analysis

As I read over the notes, I found some consistent themes, for example: where women felt uncomfortable alone, alarming behavior, and feelings.

  • Places: Although gas stations, garages and parking lots usually have people and cars it was evident that these places where highly avoided due to lack of lights and the fear of being stalked.

  • Behaviors: This category was split into two categories alarming behavior and tactics. There is concerning behavior displayed by harasser and there are also a behaviors that the victim takes on to combat the uncomfortable threat.

  • Feelings: As I dove deeper into why some women avoided going to certain places alone, I felt that there had to be an underlying fear. There were fears of physical violence, unwanted attention and being outnumbered by men. This leaves them feeling threatened, vulnerable and agitated.

EMPATHY MAPPING

Now that I had extensive information about harassment, harassers and their victims I wanted to being empathizing with the user before tackling design decisions.

PERSONA

To help focus my design efforts on addressing fears and pain points, I created the primary personal Nichole the defender persona to represent the typical users of our app. By creating a female persona the app can establish a strong sense of reliability with the target audience. Nichole is an interior design assistant who lives in a major city & had a busy lifestyle. She does not always feel safe and wants to stay alert.

DESIGNING THE SOLUTION

  • INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

  • USER FLOW

  • EARLY SKETCHES

  • WIREFRAMES

  • USABILITY TESTING

  • HIGH FIDELITY SCREENS

INFORMATION ACRCHITECTURE

  • My user research uncovered clear pain points that I needed to address with my app design. First, I needed to ensure a logical and intuitive flow of content and features.

  • Next I needed to make it easy for users to find information dangers in their neighborhood.

  • During secondary research I found that women felt that there was a need for collective action to combat harassment. I knew that there needed to be a forum where women could share concerns and warn on another.

  • Lastly, throughout the user interviews participants stated that they would avoid certain locations if they knew what was going on certain streets before heading out. Including a live map would ensure that users could get up to date information so that it could inform their travel plans

EARLY SKETCHES

Based on the information architecture I later created a user flows for a secure & safe onboarding experience, easy interaction with the live map and a simple forum community where users can chat with on another. These early sketches reflect those 3 red routes.

Route 1: secure & safe onboarding experience

In my research I found that the negative effects of long term street harassment include anxiety and insecurity so I wanted a way for women to feel comfortable in their own time using the app. I came up with the option to opt out of a profile photo and name. Instead users can select an avatar and use an anonymous username. This feature can change at any time once the user feels more comfortable talking about their person concerns on the forum. They can still get the benefit from community without showing their personal identity giving them time to build up confidence.

Route 2: easy interaction with the live map

During user interviews the participants mentioned specific places they avoided like gas stations and parking lots even though some of these places aren’t quite completely unavoidable. The live map addresses the issues of each individual user by allowing them to search for specific places on the map they would like to know about. The swipe up action reveals live news updates with time stamps and addresses so that users can have additional new updates they may not be aware of.

Route 3: Simple forum for users to chat

Since participants mentioned they look out for other women when they are in public and most participants share familiar experience having a community network could combat self isolation and fear that women experience because of harassment. In these initial sketches I added a group chat feature where an admin could create a group and invite members. I decided to eliminate that feature it later iterations because keeping the app simple was my main goal and I did not want users to feel alone if they were not added to a “group”. Instead the forum would act as a collective group with a common understanding of each other’s pain points and fears.

WIREFRAMES

BRANDING

The NOWW app is:

  • Trustworthy

  • Warm

  • Strong

  • Uniting

  • Powerful

  • Genuine

Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness and relaxation & Orange is the hue of encouragement, optimism, and self-confidence. I wanted the users to feel a sense of calm and confidence while using the app. The orange evokes a positive feeling that users are powerful in numbers and that things can change. Although the app is about a serious topic I chose warm and strong imagery to tell a story of strength and unity. I created the logo as a nod to the fact that the app will help monitor the users environment in relation to where they are.

USABILITY TESTING

After conducting a usability test there were 3 key insights from participants that informed the final high fidelity screens:

  1. In addition to community support via the forum participants wondered if an alert feature was available to be sent out to the community when in distress

  2. Participants mentioned the need for personal emergency contacts & location sharing

  3. Although participants felt that the app was simple to use some of them mentioned if there was a possibility that the app could explain some of its features.

HIGH FIDELITY SCREENS

  • ALERT FEATURE

    An emergency alert feature was a necessary addition to the design. This would create a greater shield of safety by providing a feature that can readily available for times of crisis.

  • ALERT IN PROGRESS

    Once the alert is initiated a countdown begins and an automatic message is sent out to contacts and app users. This automatic message can be edited in settings or right under the alert circle in the previous screen.

  • EMERGENCY CONTACTS

    During user interviews participants mentioned that when they are uncomfortable with harassers they get on their phone and call a loved one. This features allows users to have emergency contacts readily available that will be notified when the alert feature is tapped.

  • TOUR

    This app is about keeping it simple and focusing on safety. In order for users to feel confident using the app a quick tour eliminates any confusing especially if an emergency strikes.

  • TOUR: SEARCH

    The added tour gave clear instructions on how to use the search bar as a tool for scanning specific areas for potential danger. Originally the participants manually manipulated the map but the hope is now they will instead used the search bar as intended.

CONCLUSION

If I could do this project again there are a few things I would have done differently:

  • Perform heuristic evaluations of the NOWW app

  • Create a storyboard to take the focus off my internal bias & help me understand what drives a users behavior, and frame the experiences we create in a holistic way. If I had done this I may have thought of adding an emergency alert feature sooner

  • Encourage myself to do a timed challenge for sketches to quickly generate ideas and not overthink

What I learned:

  • Incorporating user insights and making iterative improvements based on their feedback helped to refine the app's emergency features

  • Overall, this project showed me the importance of secondary research. This research highlighted the cultural factors contributing to street harassment, such as hypermasculinity and media influence. This emphasizes the importance of addressing not only the symptoms but also the root causes of the problem. Creating awareness, promoting respect, and building a culture of active bystander intervention are essential steps in combating street harassment and creating a safer environment for women.

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