Challenge

The City of New York asked Tigerspike to develop an innovative online and mobile application that utilize city of New York datasets while improving the lives of New York residents, visitors and business.

Solution

Create a native iOS application that allows caregivers to stay connected with parents and other family members when caring for a child. The caregiver can also easily contact EMS, find a nearby urgent care facility or get expert first aid advice for everyday emergencies. I picked three open data sets from NYC Open Data ranging from 911 receiving hospitals and urgent care facilities to finding doctors offices.

Discovery & Scoping

I identified business challenges, users needs and motivations, priority features, information gathering and reviewing the datasets.

Strategy & Research

I researched emergency response and medical apps, location based apps and single and multi-person SMS apps. Conducted SWOT analysis and ranked their pros and cons. I presented a strategic vision and a project brief highlighting opportunities in the market, based on target audience profiles.

User Experience

In conjunction with the UX team, we defined three user personas to guide design considerations and user needs. In numerous whiteboard sessions, I created features lists, user journeys, UI interfaces and inspirational sketches. With a defined set of features I then drafted an annotated site map for the visual designs and a working prototype.

Card Sorting – Exercise prioritizing all suggested app features and then ranking them based on importance and needs.

Card Sorting – Final features

User Journey – Proposed user journey sketch

User Journey – Final user journey comp (Click image to enlarge)

Site Map – Final draft of an annotated site map (Click image to enlarge)

Wireframes – Final draft of wireframes (Click image to view full set of wireframes)

Visual Design

The look and feel uses a familiar clean white and red palette which suggests either medical or emergency. UI elements use large icon based buttons which allows easy quick access for navigating around the app. Content areas are clean and easy to scan information along with icons for easy recognition of first aid guides.

Early sketches of various UI screens (Click to enlarge)

Prototype

I created a working prototype on the iPhone using Invision.

View iPhone Prototype

Emergency First Aid, Homescreen, Victim’s Contact List

Victim’s Contact List, Group SMS

Emergency First Aid List, Quick Summary, Urgent Care Facility Locator

Kids Contact List, Child’s Profile, QR Code to Add Contact Information