In developing our civil rights-focused app, we initially gathered data and consulted with lawyers and individuals recently detained at protests. Our research highlighted several challenges solvable through a mobile app: providing immediate alerts about detentions, tracking detainees' locations in real time, and offering guidance and support to both detainees and their contacts.

Lo-Fi

Our app helps civil activists instantly inform their trusted contacts about a fact of detention and share their current location. We also provide instructions for detainees and their supporters.

During qualitative tests, testers had a 100% success rate and, it took them a relatively short period of time for the SOS mode launch. However, testers were confused about check-in mode, navigation, and privacy. We also discovered that the SOS button wasn’t really perceived as a button

Hi-Fi

In the Hi-Fi prototype, we fixed the problems discovered during the qualitative tests and tried a few optional solutions for different interface elements.

As a result, we decided to use the slider for the SOS button, designed additional screens, reworked onboarding pages, created our color scheme and visual style

Development

We implemented the application with SwiftUI and Alamofire. At this stage, we decided to use Twilio as an external service for SMS notifications.

After releasing on TestFlight, we had around one hundred unique installs and almost two hundred sessions with one crash only

Localization

The app was localized for English, Russian, and French languages. We worked with the tone of voice to reduce the user's anxiety level

V.2

After the testing, we came up with some advancements:

— We're planning to work on a full-fledged back-end part because it'd help us reduce the cost per notification and extend the functionality;
— Redesign the color scheme and the app's look and feel;

— Change the app's name for some markets.



At this moment, we're extending the functionality and preparing the app for full-fledged testing

Team

Vladislav Likh, UI/UX Design
Natalia Kuznetsova, Product management
Nikita Velichko, iOS development
Alexander Kirichenko, Localization
Saida Rzaeva, marketing