Design of an end-to-end mobile app to enhance women's safety while dating via self-protection tools and personalized safety networks.
The dating scene presents unique challenges for women, who tend to face greater risks such as harassment and assault. Furthermore, the rise of dating apps, driven by their convenience, adds to these risks by expanding opportunities to meet more strangers (who might not have the greatest intentions).
These safety concerns highlight the importance of empowering women with robust safety measures to help them feel confident and secure in pursuing meaningful connections.
AngelWatch is a safety app that empowers women while dating, enabling discreet exits from uncomfortable situations and requests for help from loved ones or emergency services.
Users invite contacts to the app as 'guardian angels' who can monitor them during dates and act quickly in emergencies.
Discreet safety features, such as setting up a fake phone call, help women exit uncomfortable situations without alarming their dates.
Users can share details about upcoming dates with friends and family, including syncing dates' profiles from several dating apps to show who they're meeting.
In setting out to design a women’s safety app, I began conducting surveys with a simple yet fundamental question: What dating safety concerns do women have and what safety measures do they take?
Though valuable, these findings were still lacking physical and psychological context. I needed to delve into women’s perceptions of dating dynamics to understand why they adopt specific safety measures in response to their dating concerns. Without this insight, there's a risk of overlooking factors that influence women's decision-making, resulting in an app that doesn't cater to their underlying needs and motivations.
With that in mind, I centered my interviews around the following questions:
How do women's views on dating influence their safety choices? How can I leverage this understanding to support users' actions through a safety app?
Below are the main factors influencing women’s safety concerns. These shape the motivations behind their actions, which in turn explain why they adopt specific safety measures:
TOXIC MASCULINITY
- Perception: Men tend to perpetuate toxic masculinity and react negatively when offended.
- Motivation: Avoid confrontation to prevent retaliation
- Safety Measures Taken: Using subtle exit strategies such as politely excusing themselves or pretending to receive an urgent phone call
POWER IMBALANCES
- Perception: Societal power imbalances make women more vulnerable to those with more physical, social, and economic power.
- Motivation: Protect themselves from potential threats posed by these imbalances
- Safety Measures Taken: Downplaying discomfort and carrying self-defense tools
LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY
- Perception: Women must ensure their own safety because their concerns are ignored and offenders aren't held accountable.
- Motivation: Take proactive steps to ensure personal safety and keep friends informed.
- Safety Measures Taken: Sharing location with friends, meeting in public places, and planning safety strategies in advance
CULTURAL NORMS
- Perception: Women must conform to cultural norms and prioritize harmony in relationships.
- Motivation: Maintain personal safety to adhere societal expectations
- Safety Measures Taken: Relying on subtle/less offensive exit strategies and external support (e.g. friends or trusted individuals) to intervene
Given the richness of the interview insights, I also grouped them into an affinity map to identify additional patterns.
This process reinforced the factors/motivations mentioned, and highlighted specific needs more precisely:
Tactfulness with Dating Partners
Proactiveness
Relating this to my previous findings, it's clear why some safety measures work for women and others don’t. For instance, the need for tactfulness emerges from a combination of avoiding confrontation (toxic masculinity) and using subtle exit strategies (cultural norms). Similarly, maintaining control was highlighted by combining the themes of power dynamics and lack of accountability.
Recognizing that an ideal safety app should focus on these themes, I created a storyboard to envision how non-confrontational tools, like scheduling a fake phone call, can help women safely leave bad dates while staying in control.
These personas represent both daters and their supportive friends/family. Even if the latter group isn't dating, they play significant roles in the lives of women who are, making it crucial to empathize with both sides to tailor our solutions.
- Persona 1: A woman who, following a bad dating encounter, navigates uncomfortable situations by avoiding actions that could provoke her date.
- Persona 2: A woman who isn't dating, but is a critical figure in her friends' dating lives by assuming a protective role and looking out for them.
- How might we alleviate safety concerns and empower women within the dating scene?
Current Knowledge:
Women prefer safety strategies that are tactful and help them maintain control over the situation.
Existing safety apps don’t sufficiently address these concerns. It’s also why I didn’t conduct a competitive analysis – most safety apps on the market only offer location tracking, which disregards other needs.
Design Goals:
Create safety solutions tailored to the distinct requirements and situations of both active daters and their trusted contacts.
- How might we ensure users regularly update their trusted contacts about upcoming dates?
Current Knowledge:
If sharing date details becomes too tedious due to the size of their social circles, women may neglect to do so altogether.
Design Goals:
User - Ensure features enable seamless communication with trusted contacts while prioritizing user safety and privacy.
Business - Increase user retention and engagement by emphasizing the app’s convenience, which may involve developing partnerships or integrations with popular dating apps.
I compiled a list of essential features for the app – the goal was to build upon widely-used safety measures and unify them within a platform:
01
DATE LOGGING & SHARING
This proactive safety feature lets users log date details (time, location, etc.), notify contacts, & sync dates' profiles from dating apps to share who it is they're meeting with.
02
LOCATION TRACKING
To differentiate from standard location tracking apps, location history and date check-in/check-out functionalities are included. Location history is vital in emergencies, enabling accurate assistance and creating a clear timeline of events.
03
SAFETY KIT
Ideal for on-the-go safety, the kit offers scheduled fake calls, alerts, and an SOS button. While phones have built-in SOS features, using this app automatically shares key data (locations & date details) with emergency services — essential when speaking isn't possible in some scenarios.
Safety Kit
Organizing Contacts into Groups
Notifications
User testing highlighted a need for prioritization and clarity. To compensate for the lack of safety apps, I had packed the interface with safety measures, leading to a cluttered layout.
Delivering clarity was my greatest challenge, not only in usability testing but throughout the entire design process. There were no similar apps for reference on the market, making it a new experience for both me and participants. Here’s how I addressed this:
- Created an intuitive app interface for effortless navigation
After removing unnecessary features, I had more space in the interface to organize app contents logically. I thoughtfully categorized features and mirrored aspects of popular apps to improve these features' discoverability.
- Enhanced communication through UX writing
Clear communication (e.g. disclaimers, tutorials, modals) helps users understand the implications of actions or settings. For example, when prompted to share their location, users need to know how their data will be used and who will have access.
"I don't always go home after a date if it went well. What if my friend sees my location and thinks I've been kidnapped, when I'm just staying over at someone's place?"
Not arriving home doesn't always indicate danger. Changing the location status from 'arrived at home' to 'checked out of date' better reflects post-date situations. This status shows a safe departure without revealing the next destination, addressing privacy concerns.
"I'm confused about which steps are necessary because the layout makes it seem as though I can either complete the form OR upload my date's profile."
I redesigned the layout into a step-by-step process across multiple pages to guide users through necessary form completion before uploading their date's profile. I worried this might be tedious, but added a progress bar to show users where they are and set expectations.
"The home page feels a bit overwhelming. I can't figure out how to manage my contacts/groups because I don't know where to look."
Originally, notifications were on the homepage, and the 'user profile' tab was for managing settings. In the new design, I moved "manage groups" next to contacts on the homepage for more intuitive access. I also moved in-app notifications to a separate tab to make the layout similar to existing, familiar apps.
I chose a modern, playful interface for a refreshing feel and to diverge from typically sterile safety apps. This approach aims to establish an inviting and supportive environment, especially for women who might find safety a sensitive topic.
The final designs showcase features that empower users to manage their safety and that of loved ones. Users can notify designated contacts about upcoming dates or request assistance during them, retrieve live locations, and access location history in emergencies.
Navigating the challenges in creating a women-centric safety app involved design complexities, balancing discreet safety features, and adapting to diverse dating scenarios. Ideally, if I were to move forward with this app, I would like to strengthen the app's efficacy at transferring data to emergency services and incorporating technology regarding background checks to further enhance safety.
In conclusion, this journey has been about more than just creating an app -- it's about fostering empowerment and community for women in the dating scene and alleviating the pressures of always having to be on the lookout for oneself. By creating an environment where women feel secure and supported, we can take that step towards reshaping societal norms around women's safety, fostering a culture where enjoyment and confidence take precedence in the dating landscape.
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