Safety App
Creating and marketing a fun, engaging safety app to increase usage for college students.
As a safety app, we had plenty of barriers to entry (disclaimers on location tracking, permission requests, information about the app, benefits of using the app). On top of it all, we previously required over a dozen data fields of entry for each user. Adding it all up, there were over 10 screens to get through between initial app open and the app's home screen. After looking at some statistics, we realized that almost half of the users never even got through the registration process... and who could blame them? My first priority was eliminating redundant steps and streamlining the registration process for users, which we got down to just 3 screens!
Removing Barriers
After the user selects their institution, they then get to select which alert types they wish to receive. The app also concisely explains the benefit of this action. A subtle progress bar near the top gives the user confidence that they won't have to wait long until they're home free.
One of our key integrations includes a wearable panic button that connects, via Bluetooth, to the safety app. The pairing process is fairly simple, but we wanted to illustrate a few screens to introduce the users to the hardware button and walk them through the pairing process.
Hardware Integration
Safety isn't an attractive subject. And the goal of creating a safety app (with a built-in panic button) isn't dependent on usage alone. But we noticed that our other features were not getting the attention they deserved. These additional features could be related to keeping campus safe (tip submission, timed panic button), or convenient features that students might find useful every day (maps, resources, bus tracker). We needed to make the app more appealing and encourage interaction. This was not simply a company-wide problem... safety app user engagement is historically low for competitors as well. With our ability to create and adapt quickly, we knew we had a distinct advantage in solving this issue.
The Challenge
We wanted to reduce the required exposure to extended feature explanations. First, the panic button button explanation (extremely important)... but after the next feature tip appears, they can skip all tips and just play with the features themselves (tips accessible later).
Skipping Explanations
To encourage interaction, we made a bold decision to apply color-coded features across a spectrum of hues. As a company, we've previously struggled with how to prioritize our panic button (Emergency!) within the app. On the one hand, making it stand out is paramount for reducing confusion during a potential emergency. On the other hand... panic button activation is rare, and prioritizing it (from a design perspective) can marginalize our underutilized (and much more useful on a daily basis) features. This approach assigns an inherent priority to each feature. We intrinsically understand that red is symbolic of a high priority action, such as asking for help during an emergency, but the other features also have intrinsic value based on their assigned colors as well.
Color Play
For middle to late stage prospects, a marketing video was created to showcase the full functionality of the safety app. This video was written, voiced and edited by me.
Marketing Video
Our safety app is our most commonly used product to date. This redesign helped push forward a wave of adoption that continues to eat away at market share previously dominated by companies 10 times our size. The available customization options proved vital to its overall success.
Outcome
"It's a one-stop shop for students when it comes to emergency preparedness.”
-Jim Dahle, Director of Environmental Health and Safety at Edinboro University
I worked as the lead product designer and marketing campaign manager on this project. Helping to raise awareness of the app to college students to increase usage and keep them safe!
My Role
The final registration screen asks for all required information while explaining why the app would need it. Optional fields (such as medical history that could be useful in emergencies) have been removed from registration and placed in the profile section within the app.
As our safety app gained more usage and popularity within the market, some institutions started requesting a brand-specific, white labelled app that could accommodate custom features and icon colors. As a result, we adapted our original app design to generalize the home screen so that clients could customize it using our portal.
Custom Interfaces
Once pairing is successful, the app flips its background color to indicate this success and gives a quick tutorial on how to use and replace the button.