My Ambar
Empowering Indian women to fight against sexual violence
Client
Sayfty.org
timeline
Oct. 2021 - Nov. 2021
Collaborators
Collaborating Designers: Diya Chakraborti, Kedari Lahari, Yunge Lei
Project Manager: Dr. Shruti Kapoor
My contribution
As the Product Design Lead for this project, I guided the team to conduct contextual interviews, developing persona and journey map, ideation, wire framing and producing high fidelity prototypes. I also contribute to competitive audits, survey design and analysis, and the synthesis of strategic insights.
⚠ Warning: This case study discusses sexual violence scenarios and might cause discomfort and/or PTSD symptoms to some specific audiences.
Context
Cultural Background
Crimes against women in India has risen over 63% in 2021.
India women are in need of emergent help and the essential knowledge to protect themselves from being harmed.
WHAT'S "MY AMBAR"?
A mobile app that helps fight sexual violence in India
Sayfty.org is an Indian non-profit organization that provides a variety of resources for women to learn to protect themselves physically, mentally and legally against sexual violence. The founder and CEO, Dr. Shruti Kapoor, launched My Ambar, a mobile app that provides Sayfty’s service to sexual violence survivors and victims in India.
The users of My Ambar are the sexual violence survivors and victims to send emergency alerts, find immediate help around them, and learn the necessary knowledge to combat sexual violence.
CLIENT REQUEST
Make it more accessible to get immediate SOS and help
The CEO of Sayfty.com, Dr. Kapoor asked the team to make the app more user-friendly and devise a new solution to incorporate the resources on Sayfty.com into the app.
Business Goal
Our team worked closely with the Dr. Shruti Kapoor, the founder and CEO of Sayfty on this project. With the existing prototypes at hand, Dr. Kapoor requested two main business goals:
1. Increase user engagement
2. Increase in registered users after onboarding the app
Research
Goal
To understand the safety need and frustrations of the target users, and define the improvement opportunities.
remote usability testing sessions
6 User Testing Interviews
Under the guidance of Dr. Kapoor, my team conducted semi-structured interviews with 6 female students who have experienced or witnessed sexual violence at least one time in their life. The following are the key points we tried to learn about:
• Common safety needs and frustrations
• Pain points while using key features of My Ambar
• Habits of learning self-defense/protection knowledge
• Common safety needs and frustrations
• Pain points while using key features of My Ambar
• Habits of learning self-defense/protection knowledge
User Personas
Based on the initial research and user testing interviews, we created the user personas and concluded research insights as follows.
Survivors need immediate help, learners need more accessible resources to build up knowledge.
Cognitive Walk-THrough
5 Participants for Cognitive Walk-throughs
Due to the difficulty of facilitating the vulnerable population into a user testing session within the time constraints, we conducted a cognitive walk through workshop to evaluate the learnability of the existing prototypes of My Ambar from the perspective of a new user. We defined 3 tasks to be evaluated according to the branded features of My Ambar as follows:
Scenario 1: The potential victim is walking alone at night and noticed that she is being followed by someone, and wants to send an SOS signal immediately.
Scenario 2: The user feels depressed after an abusive verbal violence, and wants to find the contact information of a Mumbai mental health help center.
Scenario 3: A sexual violence survivor wants to learn about the required legal procedure for divorce.
research insights
Victims require extremely clear instructions after the violence Happens
The app appeals to the new users most with its convenient features of “camouflage” and one-tap SOS. When introducing a learning resource community into My Ambar, it should be closely integrated with these core features, instead of merely appending another tab to the navigation bar.
Users need a balance between learning and getting immediate help
Our interviewees expressed great interest and motivations in learning the knowledge to fight against sexual violence, but they are also worried about the potential danger before detaching from a violent or abusive relationship. How to mitigate this risk and keep the users motivated is crucial to the experience.
A trustworthy and caring tone is crucial to a sense of protection and safety
From the competitive analysis, we concluded that the highest valued experiences are providing users with trust and care along the way to make them feel reliable and being protected. Setting emergency contacts as close friends or family in the beginning is a common strategy to shelter the users socially.
Problem Space
“How might we provide a more intuitive emergency experience and a more accessible learning platform to the sexual violence survivors in India?”
Ideation
Brainstorming
From our different modes of research, we used affinity mapping to synthesize and categorize the brainstorming session ideas and narrowed down the design opportunities into four categories.
Design goals
• Easier navigation with the added resource page
• A More Digestible Home screen to improve user engagement
• Intuitive and calming SOS experience with clear instructions
• A map view for "Help Center" to provide immediate help those who are in need
Mid-fidelity prototypes
Design Solutions
Design Solutions
Problem 1
Users are paralyzed with choice for getting help
Solution 1
Condensed the screen with more visual cues
Problem 2
Confusing SOS experience
Solution 2
Two-step confirm to countdown
Problem 3
Users are getting little useful information from the "Get help" list
Solution 3
Introducing a map-list hybrid view with a reorganized layout
Problem 4
Learning resources are text heavy and poorly organized
Solution 4
Categorize by resource format with “My Library”
Problem 5
Outdated visual design patterns
Solution 4
Increase accessibility of the design system
Final Design
Onboarding Experience & Home Page
Onboarding
A more intuitive and inclusive experience for the users to choose preferred language and enter emergency contacts beforehand.
A More Digestible Homepage
Displaying recommended resource alongside with cover image, illustrations and other visual content to the users instead of showing text and icons.
A more intuitive and inclusive experience for the users to choose preferred language and enter emergency contacts beforehand.
A More Digestible Homepage
Displaying recommended resource alongside with cover image, illustrations and other visual content to the users instead of showing text and icons.
Smoother SOS Emergency Experience
Double Confirmation
The user will be asked to confirm again to send the emergency message after pressing the SOS button. A countdown session also provide time for the user to cancel if they press the SOS button accidentally.
Suggested Actions
Providing suggested actions for the user after they send the SOS signals: to keep the user safe (camouflage as a weather app) or seek services from the help center.
The user will be asked to confirm again to send the emergency message after pressing the SOS button. A countdown session also provide time for the user to cancel if they press the SOS button accidentally.
Suggested Actions
Providing suggested actions for the user after they send the SOS signals: to keep the user safe (camouflage as a weather app) or seek services from the help center.
Help Center & Services Nearby
Map + List View
The students are able to specific the urgency level of their appointment request for the advisors to better manage their time slots.
Clearer Information Hierarchy
They can also add a personal note to the advisor before the appointment starts to provide context for their concern.
The students are able to specific the urgency level of their appointment request for the advisors to better manage their time slots.
Clearer Information Hierarchy
They can also add a personal note to the advisor before the appointment starts to provide context for their concern.
Learning Resources
Trending Topics
Providing video, audio and blog content from Sayfty content design team, with recommended topics based on the location the user is at given they have provided consent.
Save to Library
Building a repository for the user to collect and come back to the resources they find available again in the future categorized by the resource format.
Providing video, audio and blog content from Sayfty content design team, with recommended topics based on the location the user is at given they have provided consent.
Save to Library
Building a repository for the user to collect and come back to the resources they find available again in the future categorized by the resource format.
Reflections
Designing for the vulnerable population
Sayfty does not make a profit from its direct end-users, so it is important not to be cautious about applying the methods used in consumer products to increase user engagement and conversion rate for a monetization purpose.My Ambar aims at providing urgent support and educating vulnerable females who are prone to sexual violence, or victims who need to walk out of the traumas. Building a community platform for this vulnerable target group requires deliberation and risk assessment for features.
Feedback
“Nice job simplifying the information on all screens - from larger buttons to reorganized metadata, you did a good job making content more "skimmable" for all users. The Yelp-like filters feel familiar and intuitive. The "community" screens feel a lot more interactive thanks to your addition and emphasis of various affordances (ie. reactions, video player buttons, etc). Avoiding [user] comments makes perfect sense [for privacy reasons].”
— Jamie Reffell, Director of Design at Clever.Inc
— Jamie Reffell, Director of Design at Clever.Inc
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