Landed

01 Problem

The text heard around the world – at least in the world of those who embark on a journey home alone.

The relationship between personal safety and the surrounding community has been a subject I have been passionate about ever since Haruka Weiser’s story occurred on my college campus during my sophomore year.

People are always going and coming back from places alone. Personal safety is a top concern. 

How can we make people’s everyday solo journeys safer?

02 Interviews

To understand more about people’s thoughts about safety, I interviewed 4 people ages 21-26 over the phone or in-person. All 4 of these people have sent me a “Let me know when you get home”-esque text before, so I knew they valued safety, and thus, was someone who would be a target user for my final solution. The goal of these conversations was to learn more about the situations and factors that affect people’s perception of safety for themselves and their friends and family.

Some questions that guided my interview included:

• Tell me how you feel about your personal safety.

• Tell me how you feel about the safety of your friends/family.

• How do you feel about safety during the daytime versus the nighttime?

• What safety measures do you take for yourself? Your friends/family?

02.1 Pain Points

Traveler: While people’s threshold for what they considered “safe” varied, there were constants that defined what a safe environment was: other people and familiarity. When people found themselves in an environment they considered to be “unsafe”, they tried to find or emulate factors found in a “safe” environment.

It is difficult to make an “unsafe” environment feel “safe” due to factors being unavailable, unattainable, or simply just out of the Traveler’s control.

Loved One: There are factors that make people worry about the safety of their friends/family: who they are with, where they are going, when they are going, and how they are getting there. 

There is ambiguity around the Traveler’s who, where, when, how, and it is hard to clear up this ambiguity.

Currently, many Loved Ones resort to texting to keep tabs on their Traveler.

Text messaging as a check-in method is ineffective (the Traveler sometimes never responds or responds too slowly) and overbearing (the Loved One doesn’t want to be annoying).

02.2 Insights

Overall

Safety is seen as a shared responsibility; people not only feel responsible for their own safety, but also the safety of their friends and family.

Traveler

Travelers consider being in an “unsafe” environment inevitable, so they are willing to take measures to make themselves feel more comfortable. 

Loved One

Loved Ones want to balance alleviating their personal worry for the Traveler with trusting that the Traveler knows best for themselves.

03 Competitive Analysis

I was also curious about if there was anything that existed on the market. Personal safety is not a new concept, and I wanted to assess how current products and services addressed the problem.

While there are a multitude of solutions out there regarding personal safety – such as wearables and group walk systems – I selected two mobile applications whose goals most similarly aligned with the concerns raised through my interviewers. How were these apps successful? What use cases would the users find the app less useful in? Further, from a business perspective, it was important for me to make sure the solution I would create would have its unique value proposition that would differentiate it from the competitors.

bSafe

bSafe is a paid subscription-based personal safety app with features to help users through unsafe moments such as a loud alarm sound, live video and audio recording, and the option to share location with loved ones.

Circle of 6

Circle of 6 is a no-frills personal safety app that focuses on building a safety accountability circle of six contacts who the user can reach out to immediately through preprogrammed texts when in need.

Learnings

Through the competitor analysis, I confirmed that the need to facilitate the communication between Traveler and Loved One is important; safety is a shared responsibility.

I also realized that safety, specifically in an “unsafe” sense, has its own journey: before the emergency, during the emergency, and after the emergency. bSafe is a reactive app; it is focuses on user needs during an emergency with features to scare off or secure evidence of an attacker. Meanwhile, Circle of 6 is a preventative app; it focuses on user needs before an emergency could happen. However, with my personal experiences and those of my interviewees, maintaining a level of safety during the entire safety journey is important. I wanted to make sure my solution addressed the journey as a whole.

04 Goal

From my research, I identified two parties – Traveler and Loved One – and then mapped the responses from my interviewees into respective journey frameworks. Doing so helped me establish a timeline where I could begin to pick out specific moments when people’s anxiety was the highest and also encouraged me to view safety itself as a journey.

Ultimately, I want to not only create a safer journey for the traveler, but also give the traveler’s loved ones peace of mind. The goal of this project is to increase the satisfaction of the current low points (points in the gray shaded area) in both the Traveler’s and Loved One’s journey maps. 

The story the journey maps describes is based off of a frequently mentioned case my interviewees shared with me: heading out alone (or having a friend head out alone) to meet up with a friend in an unfamiliar area.

Traveler

The Traveler’s points of heightened uneasiness occur in moments when the environment around them is either unpopulated, unfamiliar, or a combination thereof. The Traveler copes with the anticipation of these moments by letting loved ones know where they are going and alleviates anxiety during these moments by connecting with loved ones via text.

Loved One

The Loved One’s points of heightened uneasiness occur in moments of uncertainty: I’m not sure where the Traveler is going; I’m not sure if the Traveler got there safe; I’m not sure when/if the Traveler is going to respond to my text. These moments are instantly improved upon news of safety confirmation.

05 Design Process

To solve the problem, I decided to create a mobile app because: 

• A phone is part of the holy trinity of items carried by all people, all the time: keys, phone, wallet. Thus, a phone will most likely be accessible to people during times of travel and need/danger.

• The primary way people check-in with their loved ones is through text via mobile phone, so moving this action to an app won’t be introducing an entire new way of thinking.

Further, the marketer in me immediately wanted to rename the personas “Traveler” and “Loved One” to something more catchy. This then inspired me to create a fun theme for the terminology used within the app in order to create a brand identity. I liked the juxtaposition of applying large-scale travel phrases – specifically those you’d associate with air travel like “you have landed” – to smaller-scale, day-to-day commutes, like the ones my project is designing for. And so I flew with it.

05.1 Assumptions

I started out making a list of assumptions to really narrow down my focus for my first iteration.

• The Traveler is going to their destination alone

• The Traveler only has a one-legged journey (traveling from A to B)

• Both the Traveler and Crew (the new persona label for Loved One) have access to and are checking their phones

• At least one Crew member will available to monitor Traveler

• The Crew members are in the same city as the Traveler

05.2 Requirements

Because there are two users (Traveler, Crew), I laid out each side’s needs and recognized when these needs overlap.

Traveler needs to:

• Enter in their current location, final destination, how they are getting there, and which Crew members they want to have monitor them

• Have easily accessible call-to-action buttons in case of an emergency

• Confirm arrival at destination

Crew needs to:

• See live location of the Traveler

• Know the where and how of the Traveler’s journey

• Be notified if the Traveler is in need of help

• Know when the Traveler arrived (or landed 😉) safely at their destination

06 Wireframes

06.1 Traveler Start Process

A key interaction in this app was how the Traveler would share critical information to the Crew and notify them that the Traveler requests monitoring. Below are the options I sketched while ideating.

Option 1

In this option, the Traveler hits the “alert friends” button when they start their solo journey. This will immediately alert and share the Traveler’s live location to all Crew. The Traveler can see a map to help them navigate and also see which Crew members are monitoring the journey.

Strengths

• Simple and quick one-tap process to alert Crew and share live location

• All important information and actions for Traveler are on one screen

Limitations

• Notifies all Crew at once and no option to customize this to a smaller group

• Crew only has access to live loincation tracking and doesn’t know any other important information (e.g. destination)

• If Traveler and Crew want to communicate, they will have to do it out of app

Option 2

In this option, the Traveler first selects which Crew members they would like to invite onto their journey, enter in their destination, and then arrive in a group message where they can easily communicate with the Crew. The Traveler can also view a map to track help guide their journey.

Strengths

• In-app chat allows Crew to easily ask clarification questions if needed

• Traveler is able to choose select Crew members to join them on the journey

• Crew knows the Traveler’s final destination

Limitations

• Chat as the landing screen post-information entering puts the focus back on texting versus overall monitoring

• Crew only knows destination and has access to live location tracking

Option 3

In this option, the Traveler is prompted with four questions (current location, final destination, how they are getting to destination, and which Crew members they want to invite along). After filling out the questions, the Traveler is brought to a map to guide their journey where they can also see which Crew members have joined.

Strengths

• Crew will receive all the important information immediately

• Traveler is able to choose select Crew members to join them on the journey

• After entering in information, Traveler just has to keep track of one screen for the remainder of the journey

Limitations

• Longer information entering process

• If Traveler and Crew want to communicate, they will have to do it out of app

I decided that Option 3 most directly addressed the Crew’s pain point of having ambiguity on the who, where, when, how of the Traveler’s journey. I did end up removing the map on the question screen because I realized there really was no reason why the user needed access to a map on that page. However, I also determined having an in-app chat feature (Option 2) was important so everything related to monitoring the Traveler’s journey can be contained in one platform. The final flow is below.

When the Traveler starts their journey, they will enter their destination, select how they will be getting there, confirm their current location, and add friends to track the journey. After the Traveler submits this information, they will be brought into a map view and a group chat with the Crew.

06.2 Help Actions

I knew the app needed to have easily accessible actions for when the Traveler needs help. From my interviews, the top two ways people wanted to be helped or have helped others were by calling others or being picked up/picking up others.

For the calling option, I debated whether the call action should call a Crew member or notify the Crew to call you. I thought about cases when someone might need a distraction to avoid dangerous situations (e.g. stranger talking to you on the subway). Having a friend call you in a situation like this seems natural and would give you a real reason to stop the uneasy interaction.

I decided to include the third “Call 911” action for those emergencies when you really need to be connected to authorities.

07 Prototypes

07.1 Mode Colors

There are two modes in the app: Traveler and Crew. I wanted to visually separate the two so upon quick glance, you could tell which mode you are in.

For the Traveler, I picked a vibrant pink because I wanted to have a color that represents a balance between vigilance and comfort. Hence, I went with pink because it was a close yet more peaceful option than red, a common color to symbolize caution.

For the Crew, I picked a bold blue because I wanted a color to symbolize safety and comfort.

07.2 Pop-Up

When the Traveler and Crew interact, I thought about the colors and messaging. Should I make the two profiles’ interaction be symbolized in purple (blue + pink)? After realizing the interaction points only come when help is requested, I decided that introducing a third color would be disruptive with the current colors scheme and thus confusing for the user.

When the Traveler requests help from the Crew, the pop-up confirmation colors will be in blue because the Traveler is seeking help from the “blue side”. When the Crew receives a request for help from the Traveler, the pop-up notification colors will be in pink because the Crew is receiving a request from the “pink side”.

I also changed the messaging and exit options for Traveler and Crew for this notification pop-up. If the Traveler accidentally requested help, they can simply “x” out of the confirmation screen. Meanwhile, if a Crew member doesn’t want to help the Traveler, they have to consciously press “ignore” – no simple “x” out here.

08 Solution

And thus, Landed took off ✈️. 

If you or a loved one is going somewhere alone, Landed is a mobile application that:

1. Makes the journey safer: Enhance personal safety by sharing live location and destination with selected friends and family. If something goes awry, the user can choose from easy actions to request help.

2. Gives friends and family peace of mind: Loved ones can track the journey and receive confirmation of arrival.

Here is a primary feature walk-through of the final prototype.

09 Learnings

Be clear on the problem you’re trying to solve.
Due to the time constraints of the project, I learned the importance of narrowing down the core problem I was trying to solve. At least for this MVP, there was no time to think of how to optimize the app for edge cases; I needed to focus on the core functionality. In future iterations, however, I would like to expand features and explore solutions for unexpected and rare situations. 

Understand your user types and design accordingly.
I also learned that when designing for two user types, it is important to be clear on the features important for one type and the ones important for both. If I, as the designer, am not clear on the difference, I will inevitably pass down this confusion to the user.

10 Next Steps

In the next iterations, I would like to consider adding these additional features:

• Multiple Destinations: Instead of viewing a journey as simply A to B, users can create multi-legged journeys. 

• Traveler as Crew, and vice-versa: In this first iteration, if you are a traveler, you cannot help monitor friends/family, but what happens if you want to do both?

• Traveler Groups: In scenarios like college students walking back home late from campus, it would be helpful to be able to see who else is headed in the same direction so people can travel together.