SafeCampus
SafeCampus
GD 492
2023
Enabling those on college campuses to stay informed on criminal activity so that they may take proactive measures to ensure their safety.
SafeCampus
4 weeks (team)
Timeline:
User Research, UI/UX,
Prototyping, User Testing
Roles:
Adobe CC, Figma
Tools:
In today's digital age, safety and security concerns are important, especially for college students who spend a significant amount of time on or near campus. Currently, there are no data visualization tools to assist students with identifying crime on the North Carolina State University campus.
Overview
Problem
Recent years have seen an increase in crime in the Raleigh area, which includes the area encompassing NC State. For college students, current notification systems are inefficient and lack a visual component. Safety measures on campus are also outdated and unreliable.
After deciding upon an initial direction, we identified two groups of users we aimed to keep in mind when designing the application. Identifying these two groups of users at this stage allows us to gather valuable insight and understand their pain points.
Target Groups
NC State Students
Campus Visitors
In recent years, there has been a concerning increase in crime on the NC State campus. The campus has reported higher rates of theft, assault, and drug-related offenses. These incidents have left many students, faculty, and staff feeling uneasy and unsafe on campus. In 2019, there were 727 safety related incidents involving the university. 8% of these incidents resulted in arrests for major crimes.
Increasing Crime on Campus
Two current resources that the university offers, WolfAlert and Bluelight emergency call boxes, are often unreliable and do not provide students with enough support. The current WolfAlert system often provides delayed crime reports and lacks a data visualization component. Bluelight emergency call boxes are often down for maintenance and do not offer students a viable solution for reporting criminal activity.
Current Resources are Outdated
Existing Solutions
In order to gain a better understanding of the current market, we looked at existing solutions offering crime data visualization.
Wildfire
Citizen
Community
Live Updates
App Flow
Navigation
Nextdoor
Citizen is a mobile application that provides real-time safety alerts and incident reports based on user-generated content and official government data.
Mapped Activity
“Crime Radius”
Live Updates
Photo/Video
Alert System
24hr limit
UI
Nextdoor is a social networking application that connects people living in the same neighborhood, allowing them to communicate and share information.
Wildfire is a mobile application that provides those on university campuses with information regarding criminal activity.
Alert System
No map
Live Updates
Photo/Video
In order to gain a better understanding of our intended user’s pain points, I conducted several interviews in which participants who were representative of our target audience were recruited to answer questions regarding their experiences with crime on campus. Interviews were conducted over zoom and were completed over the span of three days. We created a list of ten open ended questions in order to elicit detailed responses and made sure to exclude any leading or loaded questions.
Conducting Interviews
“Crime happens on all campuses, at any university, but the recent increase in activity has really started to make me and quite a few of my friends very nervous… even though I live only a few blocks from campus…
-NC State student, 21
“Having that extra sense of security, that I’ll know right away whenever something might’ve occurred, definitely helps me feel safer on campus — especially during these last few weeks.”
-NC State student, 19
“When you leave campus, you lose both the blue lights and the active police presence, more reliant on RPD. While they can be good, they are very short staffed and do not actively patrol as much.”
Frequent Campus Visitor, 40
Taking our preliminary secondary research, interviews, and personas into account, we crafted one current user journey to in order to empathize with the intended user and develop a deeper understanding of their needs and expectations.
Current User Journey
Map Selections
Using ArcGIS, we set out to gather map data that would allow our intended users to achieve their goals and solve their pain points.
Crime / Bluelight Locations
Car / Foot Traffic Map
WolfLine Bus Route
Campus Lighting
Design Goals
Before we set out to design our application, we looked at all the information gathered through our research and focused on three design goals.
Detailed Crime Visualization
Digitization of Emergency Resources
Emphasizing Community
Paper Prototyping
After defining our three main design goals for this project, we began to sketch rough ideas through paper prototypes.
Mid Fidelity Prototyping
After completing our initial paper prototypes and receiving feedback, we hopped into Figma to construct our mid-fidelity prototypes.
Mid Fidelity Feedback
After presenting our mid-fidelity prototypes to a group of our target users, we received a few pieces of valuable feedback.
Some users mentioned adding a shortcut for emergency calls.
How many data points are displayed and should they be displayed with icons, colors, or both?
A few users mentioned providing two map modes in which one mode would showcase current activity whereas another mode would showcase trends.
How could the emergency options be more accessible for people?
An overwhelming amount of our users preferred a tab bar. Almost all of our target users liked having all of the options laid across the bottom of the screen.
Bring Back the Tab Bar!
Initial High Fidelity Prototyping
Current Crime
Near You
Home Screen
When users open the application, they are greeted with a map that displays active criminal activity near their current location. Users may tap on color coded icons in order to view detailed information regarding specific crimes. Users may also search, toggle night mode, and change map mode from this screen.
Users may swipe up on the home screen to access “Near You.” From here, users are shown current criminal activity in descending order based on their current location. Each reporting displays address, category, date, and current status regarding the crime.
Crime Details
Location Search
Crime Details
When users tap the color coded icons on the home screen, they are able to view detailed information regarding specific crimes that have occurred.
Users may search locations on and near campus to view activity surrounding different areas. Users may filter their searches by crime category and are shown both recent and popular locations.
Crime Trends
View Crime Trends
On the home screen, users may opt to view crime trends nearby. Crime severity is color coded and users may tap on parts of the map to view crime history of a specific area.
Filter Trends
Users will be able to select a date range in which they may view criminal activity during that period. Users will also be able to filter by crime categories.
Report Activity
Off Campus Reporting
When off campus, users will be able to report criminal or suspicious activity as well as contacting nearby police.
On Campus Reporting
When users are on campus, they will be able to report activity and contact campus police. Users will also be offered a digital Bluelight option. This option will allow users to message or video call a live operator when placed in emergency situations.
Although our first set of high-fidelity prototypes met our design goals and solved our target user’s problems, we began to think about user retention. We discussed this topic with a few of our target users and found that there were a few areas in which we could improve user retention.
Increasing User Retention
Personalization
Community Presence
Campus POI Details
SafeCampus
Track crime in real time and navigate through campus with confidence.
Crime Tailored to Your Location
Upon opening the application, users are greeted with current activity near them. Users may either swipe up on a card to archive the incident, or swipe right to keep viewing other activity.
View Helpful Articles
The search page allows users to search crime by category as well as view recent and popular searches. Each location is shown with the nearest criminal activity if applicable. In order to assist in increasing retention, users may view helpful articles across various topics.
Alert Notification
Dark Mode
Travel Safely Using Map Filters
Users are shown suggested travel destinations and how safe it may be to travel to them based on available routes. Users are shown warnings, but individuals may travel safely using map filters such as increased foot traffic, and increased lighting.
Quickly Access Campus Resources
When users feel in danger or wish to report suspicious activity, they may access campus resources by tapping the middle tab bar option. If in danger on campus, the bluelight option allows users to either message or video call with a campus associate.
Users may access friends and family by selecting the family tab bar option. User’s friends and family are shown in relation to current criminal activity where their icons are color coded based upon proximity to criminal activity. From the profile option, users may access various settings such as medical information which may be helpful for emergency responders in case of an emergency.
Access Family and Your Profile
We presented our final high fidelity prototypes to a group of 7 individuals who fit the criteria for our target users. These users were asked to complete a few tasks within the application. At the end of each completed task, users were asked to give feedback regarding how intuitive each process felt.
Usability Testing
7/7 users were able to successfully report suspicious activity.
7/7 users were able to successfully access all bluelight features within the application.
6/7 users were able to successfully enter an address and select parameters to ensure safety when traveling.
Updated User Journey
We discussed how we would want to monetize this mobile application. It made sense to avoid in-app advertisements and adding premium features as these implementations would distract from being able to efficiently track criminal activity across campus. We opted for two solutions regarding monetization.
Monetization
Crime Data Sales
Use the data collected to analyze crime trends and patterns within the surrounding area and sell this data to local law enforcement or other agencies interested in crime prevention.
Partnerships
Partnering with universities, organizations, or security departments would attract a larger audience of potential users. By partnering with reputable organizations such as universities, the application would then attract more users due to its legitimacy.
