Emma O'Brien

MA in User Experience and Service Design

Emma O'Brien

Student Profile

As a UX designer with over 2 years of experience, I’m passionate about creating engaging and intuitive digital experiences. I have skills in research, design, prototyping, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. I’m currently working as a Product Designer at Genesys, where I solve a variety of complex user needs. When I’m not designing, you can find me propagating houseplants, listening to music, or enjoying the outdoors.

Project Overview

Reimagining and Reinvigorating the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme; A Design Exploration

The project focus is exploring the future of Neighbourhood Watch Scheme through design, by extending the scheme’s footprint from physical to digital to revitalise it for future use, improve communication, reporting, and make the scheme more accessible to Irish communities.

The project involves the design of a mobile application for communities to use in conjunction with the Neighbourhood Watch scheme to enhance current methods of reporting crime or suspicious activity to An Garda Siochana and community members, provide better visibility of local crime, and improve communication. This will be paired with leveraging QR code technology to improve current physical Neighbourhood Watch signs.

Background

The Neighbourhood Watch scheme is an Irish community safety programme in partnership with the public and An Garda Siochana aimed at preventing crime across Ireland. Established in 1985, it relies on communities notifying each other and the Gardai of suspicious activity.

This design project commenced with a literature review to better understand current uses of crime prevention technology, location services for crime visibility, and design considerations for crime. The literature review found that supporting social interaction between users is more effective than purely information-based crime platforms, and provided an understanding into current uses of technology for crime prevention. It also helped to identify key design considerations for crime technology.

A detailed competitor analysis was conducted, evaluating existing solutions for crime prevention and community apps from America and Ireland. Neighbors by Ring [1], allows American communities to post anonymous crime alerts and share Ring doorbell camera footage. Naber [2], provides American users with local, real time crime alerts. Cairde [3], is an Irish app allowing communities to stay connected and aware of local crime. This competitor review provided a basis for early design ideation.

  1. Information on Ring’s Neighbors product: https://ring.com/support/categories/neighbors-app-help?page=1

  2. Naber, the neighbourhood watch app http://www.naber.io/

  3. Cairde home page, from Muintir na Tire https://www.cairdeapp.ie/

Problem/Context

While Neighbourhood Watch has positively impacted communities for almost 30 years, it has yet to utilise recent advances in technology to improve its processes and visibility leading to a decline in active groups in recent years and less engagement from younger people.

Current reporting processes involve phoning the Gardai or attending a meeting - which typically takes place every 6-8 weeks. This leaves a gap of time between meetings where there is little engagement with the scheme.

The current signage for the scheme is more informational than actionable, providing an opportunity to redesign and bridge the gap between physical and digital.

Solution

The solution includes a proposed design for a Neighbourhood Watch mobile application, allowing communities to connect and share reports of suspicious activity or safety concerns as well as receive notifications of Garda text alerts. Users can view verified safety resources and access relevant emergency contacts and join an active Neighbourhood Watch group to view reports in context of their location. The current sign for the scheme has been redesigned to be more actionable, using QR code technology allowing people both within and outside of the Neighbourhood Watch groups to quickly scan and report suspicious activity in the area. The following video demonstrates the design process from sketching to final design and presents the potential uses and benefits of this application for communities.

Emma O'Brien:: Image/Video

Images


Course: ma ux and service

Year: 2024

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