Philly Truce
Creating a collaborative web app to increase safety & prevent violence at schools
Introduction - Understand - Define - Sketch - Prototype - Conclusion
Preventing Violence at Philly Schools
Philly Truce, a non-profit dedicated to addressing systemic violence in Philadelphia communities, was in need of a collaborative web app to mitigate student conflicts at schools since their current process of manual paper reporting hindered reporting and effective deployment of personnel.
The focus of this phase 0-1 build out spanning two months was to design the Safe Path Monitor experience of the app. Safe Path Monitors are individuals present before/after school, report to predicted or actual incidents, and work to resolve situations.
The team consisted of co-founders, design (my role - design co-lead), research, product strategy & development.
Product Goals
Create a platform to track and respond to incidents
Define how students and community members will submit tips anonymously
Key Design Elements
Reporting Management
Tip Submission (Messaging)
Analytics & Performance
Manage Account
Outcomes
Design Prototype Created
Development Started
Solution Validated by Founders
Discovery Research Completed
Understanding Students & Safe Path Monitors
As a design team, we worked closely with the research team and founders to strategize and collaborate on initial research for the incident reporting platform. We wanted to understand the current process, its limitations, and what opportunities exist to improve the current violence prevention program.
Methods
Competitive Analysis • User Interviews
Goals
Understand current incident reporting process
Identify features for the MVP incident reporting platform
Strategize how to engage to target users within platform
Findings (Students)
Students seek out those they trust when sharing something that has happened in their community
Social media is influential to how students perceive community and reporting
Students may hesitate to report if they fear retaliation
COMPETITIVE ANALYSISFindings (SPMs)
SPMs require basic and timely info when monitoring
Establishing trust with students is key to program
Obstacles include social media, instigators, and trauma
SPMs actively monitor safety at the school, which has a positive impact on students and the community
CURRENT PAPER PROCESSProposed Solution
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Student Texting
Utilize anonymous reporting to avoid “snitching” risk. Leverage automatic chat responses to gather necessary information and option to connect with human (Safe Path Monitor).
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Incident Reports
Build incident management reporting to allow SPMs and Admins to respond to and track progress on an incident with notes, assignments, details & priority levels.
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Dashboard
Create a user-friendly dashboard that will showcase high level performance and trends for incident reports. Incorporate school and individual SPM views.
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Notifications
After an incident is reported, a notification system should send an alert to key school personnel within a certain proximity to the incident.
Defining the MVP + User Stories
As with any product going through its first discovery phase, figuring out what should be in the MVP is always a huge challenge. With this specific project, all teams actually started at the same time without a clear scope defined, causing friction with our two month timeline. We were eager to start designing but had to focus a lot of our initial efforts in collaborating with the product team to define what would be in scope.
Through collaborative sessions, we decided on the following epics + user stories:
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As a user…
(as a student) I want to help report incidents so that I can prevent situations from escalating, but I don't want to be isolated by my peers which makes me feel intimidated and at risk.
(as a teen) I want to help report incidents so we can reduce crime and feel safe in our community but the app is not exciting and my older peers aren't using it which makes me feel not as influenced/enthusiastic to use the app.
(as a SPM) I want students to use the app frequently so we can reduce crime in and around schools in Philadelphia, but our current app is not engaging enough to this age group, which makes me feel frustrated.
(as a SPM) I want students to report any incidents that they encounter so we can ultimately reduce crime in an around schools to keep the community safe, but students aren't reporting incidents which makes me feel like the issue will never be fully resolved.
(as a student) I want to report incidents so that I can prevent situations from escalating but it feels secondary to all of the other stressors in my life at the moment (lack of basic needs like food, shelter, physical and mental health care, etc.) which makes me indifferent to the app and the Philly Truce mission.
(as a community member), I want to help report incidents so that the situation does not escalate, but I am hesitant because it may escalate to the police which makes me feel afraid and apprehensive.
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As a safe path monitor, I want to respond to conflicts in real-time so that I can help mediate the situation before it escalates, but documenting incidents with pen and paper is time-consuming and inefficient which makes me feel frustrated.
As a school administrator, I want to review incident reports so that I can collect and analyze the data and report on how things are progressing with the program, but there is no easy and efficient way to collect and organize the paper reports which is time-consuming and makes me feel unsure of the program.
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As a Safe Path Monitor, I want to easily see any open tips that have not been resolved, so that I can connect with students before things escalate, but there is no easy way to do this current which makes me feel frustrated.
As a staff member, I want to feel involved in my student's safety so that students can focus on their academics and not have to worry about violence, but our school lacks the resources and support of the school board to keep the program going which makes me feel hopeless.
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As a Safe Path Monitor, I want to easily see any open tips that have not been resolved, so that I can connect with students before things escalate, but there is no easy way to do this current which makes me feel frustrated.
Taking into consideration the research findings, requirements & user stories - the design team then set to create the site map for the Safe Path Monitor app. We first started out with general groupings of content and moved to a more detailed site map as we continued to get validation from our team members.
Organizing the App Foundation
INITIAL BRAINSTORMsite map evolution
Connecting Text Tips >> Incident Reports
Next up, as a design team we set out to create the overall flow of incident reporting. One of the larger challenges of this project was defining how the students would send in their tips for help. There had to be a balance of information exchange while maintaining anonymity, so we landed on texting a number 1-800-PHILLY-TRUCE (instead of having students download an app). This way, students could maintain anonymous and quickly text in tips without downloading anything. Marketing for the tip number would be distributed via schools.
submitting a TIP via textINCIDENT REPORTING FLOWSInitial Sketches & Designs
With our foundation set, we finally brought everything together through lo fi wireframes. At this stage, we were focused on ensuring there was a streamlined connection from initial submitted text tip to a safe path monitor reviewing, claiming & responding to the tip. We wanted to clearly state interaction points and ensure we had a defined path to conflict resolution.
Prototyping Our Solution
Our design team then transferred our lo fi static wireframes into high fidelity wireframes & an interactive prototype that we used to present to the larger team and founders to validate direction. During this time, we iterated based on stakeholder feedback, but formal usability testing will start March 2024 for further validation.
LOG IN
SPMs can clock in / out directly in app
List of announcements per district for reference
Users will utilize district provided email
2 Factor Authentication for security
claim REPORTs / message
Reports (submitted tips) default as “unclaimed”
SPM claim reports so other SPMs know incident is being addressed
Claiming a report moves report to in progress
Once claimed, SPM can now edit details of report & message student directly
CREATE REPORT
Allow SPM to create new reports (helpful when they are at schools and see incidents)
Review & editing capabilities
Student details can be included with consent
Utilize drop downs to make the reporting process faster
VIEW ANALYTICS
Analytics to highlight performance:
# of incidents within a specific date
Time resolved for each incident
Average time based on dates selected
Admin vs SPM view:
Admins can see all reports within all schools within district
SPMs can only see their claimed reports
MANAGE ACCOUNT 
Users can manage account details
name, number & email
Shortcuts for helpful resources & contacts
Reflecting on Phase 1 & Moving to Phase 2
Being a part of the first Philly Truce project was an exciting and collaborative experience. Helping communities stay safe through technology is unlike any other project I had been a part of but as I learn more about the space and Philly Truce program, I’m even more dedicated and engaged to making a difference through this app. I’m excited to continue working with our team in phase 2 and look forward to spreading awareness for the app in Philly.
Challenges
Navigating overlapping user stories & epics
Deciding on direction with range of different ideas
Lack of MVP documentation to begin project
Learnings
Organization is key for high paced, collaborative projects
Finding balance of providing direct feedback but prescribing a solution
Encouraging ideation but keeping constraints in mind
Looking Ahead
As of Dec 2023, development has started to build app
Phase 2 will start March 2024 with usability testing
Currently working with the school districts to validate features