Navigation apps route for speed. We routed for safety — building a mobile app that combines crime data, lighting, pedestrian traffic, and community reports to help new residents explore the city with confidence.
Midtown Atlanta saw 32.78% of its residents arrive from outside the area in 2022 alone. At the same time, Midtown Alliance documented 835 criminal cases — and that doesn't account for the smaller incidents that never appear on Google Maps.
New residents are navigating an unfamiliar city with tools designed for familiarity. The result is anxiety, avoidance of entire neighborhoods, and a loss of the city's potential for those who are just starting to call it home.
"As a newly arrived student, I am looking forward to life here, but the crime rate in Atlanta also worries me."
— Pre-interview participant
Our HMW: How might we help Atlanta Midtown's young new residents safely explore the city when they are on the pedestrian path?
We interviewed new and recent Midtown residents, analyzed community data from the Midtown Alliance, and studied safety perception research across five distinct dimensions.
Safety perception combines lighting, visible pedestrian activity, neighborhood familiarity, and social presence — not just crime statistics.
Users want safety information without being overwhelmed mid-route. An overloaded interface increases vulnerability, not awareness.
Knowing where you are — and that others know too — increases felt safety significantly, especially for solo navigation at night.
Residents want connection, not just data. Walking companion features and community reports create a sense of collective safety.
Users don't want to juggle Google Maps, Citizen, and a group chat. They want a single integrated solution that combines navigation and safety.
Safety priorities differ meaningfully by gender, time of day, and route purpose. Any effective solution needs to adapt to these variables.
SAFEst maps each user need to a concrete design solution, keeping the experience minimal during navigation while surfacing richer data when users seek it.
| User Need | Design Solution |
|---|---|
| Choose important safety factors | Personalization quiz on onboarding — users weight lighting, crime data, pedestrian traffic, and more |
| Community connection | Walking companion requests and friend network with optional location sharing |
| Non-overwhelming info | Contextual, layered data — minimal default view, expandable safety details on demand |
| Family / friend awareness | Automatic location sharing toggle with privacy controls before each navigation session |
| Emergency access | SOS function with configurable contacts: friends, campus police, or 911 |
| Community reporting | Two report types — community and safety — to avoid conflating serious incidents with casual observations |
Usability testing surfaced two consistent issues: UI elements were too small for comfortable interaction during movement, and the onboarding quiz lacked context — users didn't understand why they were being asked to weight safety factors before seeing any results.
Future iterations would increase touch target sizes to meet WCAG standards, add a quiz results summary showing how preferences shape the routing algorithm, and integrate real-time crime data feeds for more dynamic route recommendations.