Stay Safe
Stay Safe is an application intended to assist with assessing crimes and crime rate of your current area, or whatever area that you provide to the application. It allows users to view and be notified of crimes near their location, with an adjustable range to accommodate your needs. It can be used for research purposes as well, with the ability to check an area and any crimes commited within that space for the last week, month, year, whatever you desire of it. It helps you stay informed about your location and provide you with information that you need about an area you might be curious about.
UX Team Members
- Colby Sax - Research and analysis of competitors, heurisitic evaluation, executive summary, report editing, initial sketches, wireframe creations and refinements, IRB form, prototype design/navigation, user tests and notes, protocol tasks
- Joey Lu - Sketches, Research and analysis of competitors, report editing, wireframe creations and refinements, informed consent form, prototype navigation, user tests and notes, protocol script & tasks
User-Centered Design Artifacts
Phase I: Analyzing Users, Competitors, and Initial Designs
Executive Summary
Initial research and designing for Stay Safe focused on users being able to easily access crime activity, and staying updated on activity in their local area. These updates persist when the person is possibly moving/traveling, ensuring to keep them safe.
- Competitive analysis helped us set the groundwork for what our app should contain, as well as issues to avoid in the design process:
- Subscription Costs: Numerous features were locked behind a paywall, leading to an overall worse experience if you don’t pay.
- Inconsistency: Some competitors had out of date or incorrect information regarding crime reports. Sometimes a crime wouldn’t be properly recorded, or a notification would come several days after the incident was resolved.
- False Reporting: In some cases, a false report would occur. These reports would contain personal data as well, listed on the application for anyone to see. These potential safety breaches were a large point of concern in reviews.
- Heuristic evaluation gave us insight on what a strong user experience should look like, looking at a higher end competitor for this evaluation. It did manage to highlight some key weaknesses to take note of, however:
- A minimalist design could lead to difficulties when navigating through the application.
- The subscription model wasn’t entirely clear on benefits, with inconsistent usage of the “Plus” and “Premium” labeling, leading to confusion on what each model uniquely provided for benefits.
- With our research and findings, we created some personas and scenarios to represent likely customers, and a situation where they’d have been better off using our product. These highlighted what users needed from our product:
- An easy-to-use platform for real-time crime information and updates.
- Accessibility for features, avoiding large and restrictive paywalls.
- Improved accuracy for crimes reports, as well as more consistent and timely reporting.
- Initial sketches and design concepts illustrated:
- a clear, straightforward, easy to understand UI.
- Improved/enhanced user control and accessibility for alerts and browsing crime data.
- Transparency regarding navigation and user offerings within the application.
Full phase I report
Phase II: Refining interaction and designing wireframes
Executive Summary
The second phase of Stay Safe’s development has focused on refining wireframes to enhance user experience and ensure accessibility of key features. This stage involved multiple research methods to identify design improvements before moving into full development.
- Cognitive walkthroughs: Provided hands-on testing to assess ease of navigation and feature clarity.
- Key actions: Testers found the screens intuitive, confirming that users can easily navigate between pages, ensuring an accessible, user-friendly design.
- Missing Features: Notable gaps in features were mentioned, such as crime-type filtering and time-based data. These features were mentioned in our user persona that was tested but was nowhere to be found in our wireframe. Addressing these gaps would help to align the product with user needs.
- Informal feedback: Questions were provided to the SE team for their demo, and we received feedback that gave us insight on additional potential features that would improve the user experience and enhance user engagement.
- Crime-type disaggregation: Allow users to select the types of crimes they want to see and differentiate them visually on the map, to improve the relevancy of alerts to the user.
- Accessible crime data: Providing users with an easy way to view historical crime data to view trends of an area, staying informed about an area they might be concerned about.
- After these methods of research, modifications were made to our wireframes to account for features that were missing initially.
- Extended Time Frame Slider: Expands crime alert visibility to multiple days, offering users a broader view of crime history and increasing data comprehensiveness.
- Crime Category Settings: Enables users to select which crime types they want alerts for, to improve alert relevancy and customizability.
- Feature Suggestion Box: Added to the support page to gather ongoing user feedback, allowing for continuous improvement based on user input.
These research methods and refinements prepare Stay Safe for the prototype phase, ensuring an excellent user experience and a competitive position in the market.
Full phase II report
Phase III: Prototypes and User Testing
Executive Summary
- StaySafe’s prototype was built from wireframes, incorporating feedback to refine features and design when transitioning from phases.
- A pilot test was conducted with potential users, using a think-aloud approach and difficulty ratings (1–5).
- Feedback included both qualitative and quantitative insights:
- 4 out of 5 tasks had a 100% completion rate; 1 task had a 66% rate due to navigation challenges.
- Most tasks were rated as easy (4–5), with occasional outliers.
- Visual clarity and several features included were praised.
- Suggestions included renaming the “starred” section to “important” or “favorites” and improving interactivity for alerts and icons.
- Overall, StaySafe was well-received, with key areas for improvement identified to enhance usability and functionality.
Full phase III report