This is a 3-week project emphasizing on improving urban safety issue, with a focus on the Sustainability Development Goal (SDGs).
TravelPrep is a mobile app aiming to enhance non-local travelers safety through comprehensive information access:
Providing detailed and actionable safety information to travelers for a secure travel experience in foreign cities.
"Tourists" or "Those that happen to be the wrong place at the wrong time" are often regarded as "easy targets of crime" (George, R., 2015).
The fear of having an accident or being a victim of crime impacts on a travelers' confidence to undertake a journey (Beecroft & Pangboume, 2015).
Information is recognized as a major source of confidence and reassurance when traveling and can greatly support perception of personal security in travel (Beecroft & Pangboume, 2015).
According to the insights we generated from primary and secondary research, we came up with the idea of creating an app called TravelPrep which aims to enhance travelers' safety and confidence to undertake a journey in unfamiliar cities by providing access to comprehensive safety information.
In TravelPrep, We divided the information into three parts:
1. Safety-enhancing information
2. Insecurity factors
3. Local crime and safety profile
We conceptualized a map-like interface that encompasses multiple safety-related pieces of information based on our primary and secondary research.
Multiple info homepage allows users to save locations as a list. The info cards display the distance between the user and the location, safety rating, open hours, whether the location/building has a security guard or is a police patrol area.
TravelPrep has a "Busy area" function providing real-time information on traffic and crowdedness.
Lighting has been considered a critical factor that affects tourists' feelings of insecurity, especially when they are walking at night.
Therefore, TravelPrep provides "Night mode" that allows users to check the distribution of street lights.
The settings page and contacts page allow users to customize safety information as a default setting, upload identification for emergency use, and save emergency contacts before their trip.
We realized that there was a flaw in a function that might confuse users during the prototype evaluation. Afterward, I found out the user flow chart did not cover that step. This hits me with the importance and necessity of a clear user flow that covers all of the steps.
I had not touched on qualitative coding skills when I was doing this project. However, after engaging in some readings and courses related to qualitative coding skills this semester, I realized that the way we analyzed the data from user interviews could be more systematic, potentially yielding more detailed insights, and enabling us to be more aware of the subtle connotations behind the words if we understand how to leverage qualitative coding skills.
Design process is not a checklist. As designers, we have to be aware of the intentions behind the research or design methods we selected and always ask “What questions I am trying to answer by using this method.” instead of mindlessly going through all of the design methods.
Download the detailed documentation
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