Informatics Project: Guardian

I led five other undergraduate students in my first Informatics class during Autumn Quarter 2017. The group elected me to be team facilitator which led to my responsibilities of task delegation and role establishment. I started off identifying a group of people we wanted to help. We chose to go with the triggers of students walking late at night back to their dorm/apartment after class or hanging out around the University District as crime rates has spiked in the area. This was our attempt to address the problem through information technology.

FoI was able to exercise practices that are crucial in the standard method that industry professionals use to design new information products and service. Working in a team to design a new information resource was a rewarding experience, I use the skills learned to this day:

• User Research
• Usability Testing
• Discover user information problems
• Identify stakeholders
• Create a prototype
• UI/UX Feedback

Problem

Based on the concerns of individual safety at the UW campus, we decided to focus on serving students and faculty. We intended to develop an app that ensures the safety of users navigating alone. Walking alone can be dangerous in the UW neighborhood, especially at night with malicious activity on the rise. This is a recurring problem that we are aiming to address as soon as possible because it has the potential of improving mental health, academic studies, and allows a healthy social life. 

Goal

To provide stress-free ways to navigate to and from campus, whether you are walking alone or late at night we want to ensure your safety to your destination.In a generation that is heavily reliant on mobile devices, our ultimate goal is to help protect students from harm when no else is there to help them.

Overview

Our group strove to explore various different situations in which our app could potentially help. To do this, we identified different stakeholder groups, which included a variety of people, to focus on allowing our app to reach its full potential. Since our solution may impact an array of users, we researched both direct and indirect stakeholders to probe the contrast of responses--UW Seattle Police Department, a parent, and four students.

A majority of our research consisted of face-to-face interviews and natural observations to find our objective. On Saturday, October 28th, a group member initiated the first interview with sophomore, Jin You. We then proceeded to questioning a female student named, Cecilia Zhao on the same day. Ironically, the interview took place while she was walking in the University District area. She obviously had lots of experience with walking to places in the area alone. Our group also wanted to interview students with disabilities to ensure that the app had an accessible design, not only to well-bodied students, but for all that have the struggle of walking/wheeling alone in the dark. This is where our last direct user interviewee, Carl Dunlap, who was interviewed on Tuesday, October 31st, ties into our project. As for the indirect target stakeholders, we spoke with Steve Rittereiser on Wednesday, November 1st, who works as the major for UWPD. Another indirect stakeholder we interviewed on Tuesday, October 31st, was a Prajinesh Jayan, a parent of a current UW student. We wanted the input of a parent since they would take interest in the safety of their children, and might have suggestions on certain resources we could include in our app.

Through our user research we learned that many students walk home alone late out of necessity, and often feel unsafe and uncomfortable when doing so. Students face real danger when walking alone at night, and often are not confident in the safety of their community. Many of our interviewed students have articulated that they want the ability to have their location tracked while using our app, and the option to “check in” with the app to ensure their safety until they reach their destination. Many have suggested that we implement a feature that allows the users to send a distress call, where their current location is sent to emergency contacts and possibly even police departments in the area. One student also suggested that the users of our app can maybe be connected when walking in the same direction, or to the same destination. Carl Dunlap was more specific about his needs, as his hands are indisposed when on the move. He suggested implementing a voice command in our app to allow more accessibility for different types of users. Finally, Steve Rittereiser, who works for UWPD, suggested different types of distress calls that could be sent to his department, so that officers could prioritize which cases are emergent or not.

Many of our interviewees also had suggestions on what not to include in our app. The protection of privacy was the concern of many students, as they suggested that their location only be tracked when the app was running on their phone. Many students also brought to light that constantly checking in to prove their safety could be a very tedious and distracting task when they are walking home. Their suggestions were to lengthen the period of time between each “check in” with our app, and maybe even make the time customizable. Another suggestion was to allow emergency contacts to receive distress or location information even without downloading the app, and to make the distress signal a call or text to allow them more possibilities of actually viewing it.

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User Research & Usability Testing

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Persona #1

Dianna Cho

University of Washington Student

“I don’t feel comfortable walking alone around UW after it gets dark it really stresses me out when I have to study late”

Goal

Find a reliable way of getting on and around campus

Feel safe and confident

Have a dependable way of contacting authorities in an emergency

Stats

20-years-old

Lives on the Ave

Studying Microbiology

Relationships

Boyfriend of 4 years

Family back in S. Korea

Behavior/habits

Studies late at night in the library

Rarely takes public transportation

Studying schedule is predictable

Technology and Skills

Multi-device user. Has a MacBook for everyday school work and and iPhone. She is motivated, has decent study habits, and is a very social person.

Persona #2

Adam Newton

University of Washington Student

“I roll occasionally at night alone but I don’t like to”

Goal

Feel safe while riding his wheelchair late at night at UW

Be able to hang out with friends or get food late at night

Be able to contact authorities for help quickly

Stats

19-years-old

Living with muscular dystrophy so he drives a wheelchair

Lives in a west campus dorm alone

Studying business

Relationships

Has multiple friends that live over 5 blocks away

Family is local and visits once a week and on moments notice if needed

Has a caretaker to help him get to bed and wake up

Behavior/habits

Likes to go out to eat between 3-5 blocks away

Hangs out with friends (sometimes late at night)

Uses bus, but it’s a hassle to do alone (he has to be strapped in and then let out)

Technology and Skills

Multi-device user. Uses a laptop for school work and surfing the web. Uses a smartphone for communication and entertainment. Struggles somewhat with motor skills, but can operate his laptop and cell phone decently well. Cannot use phone while driving in wheelchair.

Persona #3

Ron Thompson

University of Washington Police Department

“Our goal as a department is to ensure the safety of our community and all of the people in it”

Goal

Ensure the safety of those in the community

Allow people to walk through the community and feel comfortable and safe

Be able to respond quickly to those in distress

Help lower crime rates in the area

Stats

39-years-old

Lives 5 minutes away from campus

Has a degree in psychology and criminology

Relationships

Has a wife and 3 kids, 2 who go to UW

Close with all of his fellow UWPD coworkers

Behavior/habits

On call during the hours of 10 pm - 5 am

Protective father

Always on high alert for crime

Technology and Skills

Uses a laptop for work. Has one specifically in his cop car to be able to see the live location of crime / distress calls and be able to navigate to it. Also, has his phone’s bluetooth connected to his car to allow easy phone call access while driving.

Conclusion

Conducting interviews with strangers, friends, and the UW Seattle Police Department revealed helpful insights. I was able to distinguish the pros and cons of the current app interface at the time. We could then come together as a group make improvements after taking the time to carefully review, analyze and synthesize the information collected.

Wireframe Sketches

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Prototype

Live Prototype on InVision: https://invis.io/5QHAH43VFR4

User Feedback

In the process of creating questions for our survey I wanted to avoid loaded questions such as, "Do you know why this product is so bad?" that could potentially to misleading feedback. I intended to have a theme, including questions that were unbiased to establish credibility.

By the end of the quarter, we had a final project fair for the entire class. This was an opportunity to gain valuable feedback from our professor, as well as the several TAs whom would assess our work. We utilized this time to showcase our project and to gain feedback from our peers. We had our own table set up with a poster, brochures, and electronics ready for other students to test our product. I set up a google form for students to fill out, see images below,

Responses:

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