Meetdub: The Endgame to the Ave-ngers
By Kevin Choi, Elizabeth Castillo, Navkiran Nijjar, Allan Tran
Problem and Solution Overview
There is an ongoing issue around UW Seattle’s campus regarding public safety. Students have stated their worries about traveling, especially on foot, around the U-District neighborhood adjacent to the university. Much of this anxiety originates from the noticeable increase in criminal activity around the Ave after dark, and suspicious persons can be seen there even during daytime. Impressions of public safety are further exaggerated by how often UW Alert emails are sent out to every student, especially in light of recent events. The importance of safety and wellbeing, both at an individual level and students as a collective, should be prioritized. Despite only taking on a couple aspects of social sustainability, both safety and wellbeing have far-reaching implications on the UW student life and experience for current and potential students.
Design Research Goals, Stakeholders and Parti
The goal of our design research was to gain insight on how students feel returning home from campus, and their approaches in example scenarios we provide and how they currently secure their personal safety. We chose interviews as our first research method because experiences involving personal safety can be lengthy anecdotes, but they also allow for deeper discussions on their personal commute and giving perspectives on solutions and feedback in tackling our problem statement. We also conducted a survey that was posted on the university subreddit because topics of personal safety not only have a relatively high frequency but also high engagement. This research method was chosen to get a variety of responses and to examine the frequency of ways that commuters stay safe. We also wanted to examine any correlations between the background of commuters (such as gender, stature, routes) and their safety techniques.
Design Research Results and Themes
Statistical Results
From over 50 responses, students say they feel safe enough when traveling back home during the day but at night is considerably different. The median of students rate the safety of the Ave a 3/10 at night compared to a 8/10 during the day. The common reasons why students commute at night include attending RSOs, working jobs, studying late, evening classes, and working out at the IMA. A substantial number of respondents (89%) also have not utilized the free existing safety services such as NightWalk or NightRide shuttle provided by the University. Some students shared that waiting for these services takes too long. When asked about situations at UW Seattle, the majority of students (74%) have experienced their own or encountered others’ personal safety being threatened, or heard of others’ experiences.
Willingness to Pair Up
For the majority of students, individual sense of safety when walking in pairs or as a group improves. However, the general consensus is that one would only walk with another UW student they don’t know only if necessary such as when safety is threatened. Many respondents did specify they would be more willing to pair up if they were of the same gender, especially for females. Some indicated that they already try to stay close or keep pace with other students, rather than needing to initiate and ask as students tend to keep to themselves.
Navigating the Burke-Gilman Trail
Since there’s always students who utilize the Burke-Gilman Trail to get from place to place both on-campus and beyond, we wanted to see how students felt about taking a stroll on the trail late at night. The B-G Trail surrounds the campus for 1.5 miles from University Village down to the west campus halls. Our findings show that there’s a majority agreement that it’s an awful idea to be on the trail late in the night, and one better be well equipped with trail knowledge and their personal safety. Several students were also aware of a body being discovered on the trail near UW over the past summer. Many say that the B-G Trail is relatively safe during the day, but there are some parts of the trail surrounding the campus that are more secluded.
Proposed Design
We have taken many factors from our research findings into consideration for designing the app. While it’s not shown in this storyboard, one critical design element is only allowing UW students to register for the Meetdub app, such that accounts are created using only SSO authentication using students’ UW NetID login credentials. Names and perhaps their student photo too are taken directly from the UW account, and can only be changed on request to better secure the authenticity of college student profiles.
In theory, users would have mutual trust on the app because they are looking for a walking partner. But in practice there will be bad actors, so in addition to using UW credentials another design element is to have a reporting and a rating system in place. This is to address student concerns over meeting and walking with a stranger, both from a safety but also social standpoint. Likewise, the app also would include user preferences so that students can match with other students seeking similar experiences. This is illustrated in the third panel where it shows a girl choosing her preferences for a partner of the same gender and preferring not to chat. The user puts on her headphones and eventually gets to their destination as shown in the last panel with their walking partner before they wave each other goodbye.
