People working out at the beach need a way to ask for help when they are in danger or have suffered a serious injury because as of now they can only rely on people around them to provide a helping hand. Collaborating with San Diego Lifeguard Service,  this project designed a new "lifeguard" system based on what we have now throughout extensive user researches. Click here to view the slide deck.

Problem

When people workout outside, there are many potential problems. Since it is outdoor, weather, temperature or other natural factors are uncontrolled and unpredictable. For workout at the beach, rip current, marine life, rocks, and shells in the sand can all cause serious injury. How to make people who work outdoor on the beach be safe and feel safer ?

Solution

SafeU is an interactive and cross-platform rescue system designed to build direct and synchronous communication between lifeguards and beachgoers. 

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Team

Tamar Esserman

Akanksha Kevalramani

Yahav Erlich

Christina Mak

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Scope

User Research 

UX/UI Design

Tool

Paper and pen

Post-its

Figma

Invision

My Role & Contribution

UX researcher - conducted online and field studies, interviews to gather user insights

UX designer - created storyboards and moodboard, prototyped and designed the core functionalities

UI designer - created mockups, design specs and user interface of the app

User Research 

We did our user research for two parts, first one is online research. We wanted to know if safety is really a problem. The second part of user research was going to the field and asked different stakeholder questions. Our first stakeholder is the lifeguard, ranger and other safety staffs. Our second stakeholder is the people who workout at the beach.

Online Research 

Statistics of California 2017:

• Rescues 58,577​

• Preventative Actions 4,564,800

• Medical Aids 288,340

• Drowning Deaths 60

• SAN DIEGO annual rescues about 5,000

Interviews and Observations

• After an injury, the first instinct is to call 911

• People are not familiar with ocean and rip currents

• People really can't get reach to lifeguards if they are far away from the lifeguard tower

• Rely on people around you to save you come

Personas

Storyboards

We considered having a body-sensing device that detects the user’s heart rate, blood pressure, to determine if the user is in danger or get injured in the ocean or on the beach. Then notifies the lifeguard and other users nearby. This process could largely decrease the time need for people to get help from a professional staff and increase the possibility to get immediate help from others.  Click here to view more storyboards. 

Moodboard & Design Specification

The main color of our moodboard is turquoise. We wanted people to feel safe and relax. So we thought about greenish color and also a soft sandy color that is the color of the beach. We extracted the colors from the moodboard and used for the design of the screens. So the primary color of our app is turquoise, orange and sandy colors. We also have different color compositions for the screens of the bodying-sensing device depends on what information showed up on the screen. View the full design specification here.

Physical Prototype

The watch we design to implement out app will be very similar to the smartwatch on the market right now. It has a screen that can show basic exercise data like distance and duration. It also has a body sensor that can detect the basic body data like heart rate and blood pressure which can be used for exercise data and more importantly used for the alerting system we design. The biggest difference here is that our watch has lights on the strap and the side of the screen. Lights can help others including lifeguards to find the person who wears this device that needs help easily. Another design of this watch is the button on the side. This is the trigger to call the help, we decided that users need to pull the button to call help which prevents false alarm since it is harder to pull than push. And if you push back the button you can cancel the alert. Moreover, this watch also allows you to make a phone call with the lifeguard.

Screen Mockups & Functionalities

Wireframes

Main Screens

Normally, the watch displays the current time, a stopwatch, and a distance tracker. The user can swipe the screen to see their heart rate and blood pressure. For the app, it is only used by lifeguards. The SafeU splash screen appears when first opening the app. The home page displays the location of people wearing the watch. People who have indicated themselves as special care are shown in yellow. The user navigates the different functions of the app using the hamburger menu.

Editing Danger Zone

Lifeguards can set the danger zones by adding points on the map to draw the danger zone boundaries. Since the dangerous area is always changing according to weather everyday, it is better to have a way to let people on the beach know where is dangerous. Accordingly, people wearing the watch will see a warning on their watch if they are in or close to a danger zone.

Alerting

The main feature of this app is a new way of alerting safety guard. So an alert from the person who wears the watch triggers a push notification on the lifeguard’s phone. Then the lifeguard can view the person’s information, call the person, and accept the request. Accordingly, the watch user will see the alert was sent and can call the lifeguard. Moreover, other watch users who are nearby will also be alerted and be shown the direction of where the person who need help is located. The person in need of help can see when a lifeguard has accepted their request for help. This provides watch users feedback about their requesting and also increase the possibility to be helped in a short time.  

Resolving Incidents

After the lifeguard accepts a request, they can navigate themselves to the location of the person and either resolve it or unaccept it to let another lifeguard take care of it. After resolving an incident, the lifeguard can write a report to describe the incident. This can help with the data collecting and other statistic summaries.

Prototype Testing

Normally, the watch displays the current time, a stopwatch, and a distance tracker. The user can swipe the screen to see their heart rate and blood pressure. For the app, it is only used by lifeguards. The SafeU splash screen appears when first opening the app. The home page displays the location of people wearing the watch. People who have indicated themselves as special care are shown in yellow. The user navigates the different functions of the app using the hamburger menu.

They liked about the heart rate information that helps determine urgency.  They can easily  fill in incident report and have they ability to set and easily update danger zones. They said this was an all-in-one place tool that could really help with communication. But they also concerned about legitimate problems since lifeguard reports typically need to be signed by helped person for legal reasons and it might need to integrate 911, lifeguard dispatch, emergency paramedics. 

These were some design considerations we summarized: 

• Make the edit danger zone a very clear process

• Integrate this design with other areas, not just the beach. How would it look like for rescuing someone on the cliffs?

• Add in other notifications for people, such as if they’re entering a swim zone or a surf zone.

• Have a section to update information about water temp, tides, etc. that people often ask lifeguards

• Make the boundaries of danger areas rely on other information not just on the lifeguard's knowledge- do more research on this.

• Clarify each step of the rescuing process, what is happening at each step and what they are trying to fulfill.

Final Poster

Takeaways

01: Explore the new area. 

This was a class project and the topic was healthcare. Since we were in San Diego, going to beach was a big part of our culture. Moreover, there was little done in healthcare speciifc about beach. So we thought it was a good opportunity to explore this new area and we started our user research just from being on beach and observed people. 

02: Always go back to your initial interviewees and test your designs

People got excited about knowing how far you had been and would like to share more about their thoughts and understanding.