Project type
Personal
My role
UX/UI designer
Timeline
6 weeks
Design brief
12 million people experience intimate partner violence each year and often have a limited window of time to take action.
Problem
How can we support abuse survivors in preparing for potential legal action while reducing their fear and sense of helplessness?
Solution
A secure and discreet documentation tool that empowers abuse victims to safely record and organize evidence of violence and abuse.
Impact
Discretion in safely gathering evidence
60 seconds or less
Users successfully completed all tasks within 60 seconds
100% task success
Achieved 100% task completion with zero errors
Project goals
Minimize survivor risk during critical moments
Create a user experience that empowers action
Discretion in design and functionality
Simple and intuitive interface
Secondary research
Fear stops survivors from reporting
Perpetrators often destroy devices, erase messages, or restrict access to technology.
Key barriers
Fear of retaliation and escalation
Privacy and confidentiality
Insufficient resources and support
User journey map
Transforming user fear into hope
We want to turn users' experiences from fear and helplessness to empowerment and action as they prepare to leave their abuser and build a legal case against them.
User goals
Feel empowered and supported while navigating the legal process
Document abuse effectively and safely
User vs business goals
Helping users look forward to the future
How can we achieve these goals?
Simple, intuitive interface with quick-fill forms
Neutral branding and language
Encrypted data, safe exit, and legal compliance
User and task flows
Reducing user stress and cognitive load
Users fear being caught by their abuser so I prioritized safety features like automatic cloud saving, app data deletion, and safe exit. If the app is closed or Safe Exit is used, the entry is saved to the cloud and removed from the device.
Paper wireframe
Discretion through a functional wellness app
Haven appears as a standard mental health journal where users track their mood and well-being. Behind this interface, prompts subtly guide users to document crucial evidence.
Women aged 18–34 face the highest rates of IPV.
Low-fidelity prototype
Guided prompts or blank journal
Users can document events with two options: a guided format for step-by-step support and a blank version for flexibility.
Usability testing
Prioritizing speed and accuracy
I conducted 3 rounds of in-person usability testing, focusing on task duration and completion/error rate. My testing informed a few insights:
Unnecessary steps need to be removed
To simplify the experience and reduce decision-making mental load, I decided to combine both options into a single, unified log.
The decoy interface is not convincing enough
The prompt wording immediately was immediately flagged as out-of-place by users, which would definitely raise suspicion from an abuser.
Iteration
Carefully curated prompts
To ensure the interface does not raise suspicion, I made the wording even more subtle. If a user is caught by their abuser while using the app, they will be at a lower risk of compromised safety.
Original questions
Updated questions
"I think I would feel secure if I needed to use this app for any reason"
Final deliverables
Impact for survivors
My last design updates validated success through one last round of user testing.
60 seconds or less
Users successfully completed all tasks within 60 seconds
100% task success
Achieved 100% task completion with zero errors
Final takeaways
In an ideal world…
If this product were to actually launch, I'd make a few changes:
I'd collaborate with other teams
Designing a platform that involves such a sensitive topic would definitely require input from legal teams, marketing, and engineers to ensure my design is compliant with a variety of different regulations, user protections, and industry standards.
I'd conduct testing with actual survivors in safe environments
Since this was a personal project, my user testing was super limited. However, this restraint pushed me to conduct a lot of secondary research to ensure I was approaching the topic with the most empathy and education possible.