DESIGN OF A USABILITY FRAMEWORK: FEMALE FOCUSED MOBILE SAFETY APPLICATIONS

Abstract

In today's modernized digital world where we have progressed exponentially in all the fields, a few grave concerns remain, one of which is that women still feel unsafe and uncomfortable moving around due to the numerous gender-based discrimination they encounter daily. Majority of the female population globally has at least once in their lifetime that has felt unsafe and thus certain digital safety apps on the mobile phones offer crucial support to them in the panic episodes. The effectiveness of the app will be increased if the design of the layout is user centric which will provide optimal usability for the users to react during panic episodes. Since the cognitive load may increase in such situations the application should be designed such that the app interface should be clutter free and the user should press the right touch target button. The existing safety applications lack this understanding of usability design principles. Thus, there is a need for a certain framework specifically tailored for female focused safety application. This thesis presents a framework that can serve as a model for developing safety applications with a standardized and consistent format. The methodology will employ user testing and real-world implementation by using usability and visibility principles. This will have the potential to ultimately lead to a standardized user-friendly interface by reducing the cognitive load on the user as well as effective and efficient usage of the app. Using usability heuristic and visual design principles, and various research methods of gathering user insights, the guidelines were designed around PACMAD model, for addressing, identifying and developing potential usability guidelines. The existing guidelines adopted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) India, for developing ‘Guidelines for Development of Good applications (GuDApps) for developing any e- government apps were referred and a proposal of guidelines for safety applications were adhered. This framework has the potential to significantly improve the user experience and effectiveness of safety applications, ultimately empowering women, and girls to lead safer lives. Later, using the developed framework of guidelines, a government safety application ‘112 India’ was thoroughly reviewed and attempted to redesign initial emergency screens.