Product Design

Case Study

Up-Nxt is a travel safety app for women, which helps female travelers get the safest destination information, danger detection, emergency help and other functions through multiple interactions between the phone and the watch.

Project Overview

In an era where solo travel among women is increasingly popular, a significant barrier hampers their desire for adventure: personal safety.

Data from Condor Women's Travel Statistics reveal a concerning trend—65% of women cease solo travel due to safety concerns.

Despite the abundance of reviews, vlogs, and images aiding in the selection of seemingly safe vacation destinations, the reality encountered upon arrival can starkly differ.

This discrepancy underscores a critical gap: the absence of a dedicated solution designed to address and mitigate personal safety issues for women travelers.

Problem

My Role

Product Owner, UX Research Lead and UI Designer

Timeline

10 Weeks

Muskan Gupta

Sree Sevithaa

Vicky Song

Team Members

Figma (Wireframing, Prototyping, Branding)

FigJam (Brainstorming, User Research, Persona DevelopmentUser Flows, Affinity Mapping)

Canva (Presentation)

Tools used

Product

UPNXT addresses the key safety concerns of solo female travelers through the following features:

CORE FEATURES

Real-Time Danger Alerts: The app offers real-time alerts about potential dangers in the traveler's vicinity, such as protests or criminal activity. These notifications are directly sent to both phone and smartwatch.
Safety Ratings & Color Mapping: Hotels, restaurants, and local areas are rated for safety using a color-coded system: green for safe, yellow for caution, and red for danger. This feature allows travelers to make informed decisions before and during their trip.
Emergency Assistance & Local Contacts: Users can access local emergency contacts and receive immediate help via intuitive gestures or voice commands. These actions are designed for quick use in high-stress situations.

USER RESEARCH

We identified that solo female travelers, particularly young professionals and students, face challenges in finding reliable safety data and immediate emergency assistance during their travels. By targeting this group, we could provide a holistic, safety-first travel solution.

32 million single American women went traveling at least once over the past year.

The search volume for the term ‘female solo travel’ across all search engines has increased by 62% over the past 3 years.

65% of women in the US have vacationed without their partner.

Travel companies dedicated to women-only customers have hugely increased by 47% in 2021

Interviews

User Quotes

The hotel I booked on my last trip was bad; it didn't look like it was shown on the website. Also, it was in a dangerous area, I didn’t feel safe.

I learned on the news that there had been a shootout, and three people had died in the area I had visited an hour earlier. This made me feel scared because I had been shopping in the surrounding area and had no idea what was going on.

I wish there was a dedicated safety app that would help me detect safe/dangerous areas during my trips and it would be great if I could get some local help during an emergency situation.”

I worry about being unaware of sudden dangers like protests, natural disasters, or criminal activities in the area I’m visiting. Real-time alerts would make me feel safer.

When traveling to new destinations, I often don’t know the local safety precautions or areas I should avoid. This makes me anxious about exploring on my own.

In an emergency, not being able to communicate due to language barriers could make it difficult to get the help I need. I wish there was an easy way to overcome this during my travels.

I enjoy traveling and exploring alone, but unpleasant experiences from my last trip make me anxious to travel

Concerns about personal safety are consistent across all levels of travel experience, regardless of how well-traveled a woman may be. There is a significant gap in reliable, real-time safety data and trustworthy resources to guide female travelers.

AHA Moment

What stops women from traveling alone?

There are many factors that prevent women from traveling alone, but safety is undoubtedly the primary factor to consider

Affordability

Getting lost

Personal safety

Product

USER RESEARCH

Understanding Our Audience

A woman who wants to travel solo is experiencing the problem.

Who?

What?

She feels unsafe while travelling alone. She needs credible reviews for the hotels, and places that are safe to visit. She also feels that there should be a way to contact the local authorities when in danger.

Where?

The problem arises when she reaches the destination. When the hotel doesn’t look like it was portrayed in the website or when she is stuck and doesn’t know who to contact in the case of emergency.

Why?

So many women want to travel alone and explore the world on their own. The safety issue is limiting them from doing so. If we improve the problem of safety, we could improve the experience of thousands of women and make their travel journey better. This would encourage more women to travel alone which could lead to more people using and engaging with our application.

IDEATION

How might we create a secure and empowering experience for solo female travelers, allowing them to fully enjoy their trips without the constant concern for their safety?

How Might We...

We focused on understanding the preferences, and challenges faced by solo female travelers, particularly in the context of safety. By conducting user interviews, surveys, and online ethnography, we sought to uncover the pain points that limit women from traveling confidently.

Within a tight 4-day deadline, we successfully interviewed 12 women who had experience with solo travel. Through these sessions, we gathered over 725 data points from a combination of surveys, interviews, and online ethnography. These insights were instrumental in shaping the direction of our design process.

Information Architecture

Building the Foundation

This Information Architecture served as the backbone of our design process, providing a solid framework that enabled us to test, iterate, and refine each element based on feedback from our user testing sessions. By visualizing every interaction, we were able to maintain a clear focus on user needs, ensuring that safety and ease of use remained at the heart of the app’s functionality.

Site Map

We developed a structured site map to ensure seamless navigation through the app’s features, from emergency settings to finding local help. This organized architecture helped streamline user interactions and guided our design process for a more intuitive user experience.

Low-fidelity

We began with low-fidelity prototypes to map out user flows, focusing on the emergency help and safety rating features.

Mid-fidelity

The mid-fidelity prototype focused on both mobile and wearable interfaces, ensuring that users could seamlessly access critical features in times of need.

Key Takeaways

1. It is important to understand who your target audience is.

2. Iteration was critical. We repeatedly tested and refined the emergency assistance feature to ensure it
was quick and easy to use in high-stress situations.

3. Wireframing is time consuming

4. Feedback suggested that while women were our primary target, there was a demand for a more
inclusive solution that catered to all travelers while focusing on female safety needs.

Post designs outcomes

Prototyping

Based on our research insights, we developed three conceptual sketches addressing the identified problem space. These concepts share a common theme focused on enhancing traveler safety. They include solutions for assisting users in locating safe accommodations, alerting users to nearby hazardous situations, providing a swift method for reaching local law enforcement, and fostering a global community of fellow travelers.