Zenit

Struggling with the initial topic

The initial briefing was to design a digital product based on the theme of "communities and support networks". We approached it through very broad lens, exploring how digital spaces could foster collaboration, mapping a wide spectrum of social issues on Miro, from isolation and local commerce to bullying prevention.

Our strongest idea was tackling "urban street insecurity". Still, for weeks, my team and I kept wondering if we were investigating the best cut of the problem, as we feared for choosing a topic that could be sole responsibility of the government.

Researching before deciding

We had to go through many stage to move past personal biases and media narratives, we structured a rigorous mixed-methods discovery phase. We executed an institutional desk research review to ground local data, referencing macro-trends from the Global Peace Index 2024 alongside local crime statistics.

We performed a benchmarking analysis of leading personal safety apps to evaluate tracking features and conducted an immersive POV safari to simulate the cognitive load of walking alone. We also launched a pilot survey and a mass questionnaire with 154 responses, validating that perceived insecurity heavily conditions nighttime mobility.

When the data contradicted my expectations

Coming from São Paulo (Brazil), a city with high rate of phone robbery on the streets, I imagined Barcelona would be a city where safety would hardly register as the citizens' priority. However, the data showed exactly the opposite. In fact, safety concerns are highly present in Barcelona, especially in public spaces, public transit, and during the night. They expressed an anticipatory anxiety that triggers defensive habits like changing routes, walking faster or faking phone calls.

This was yet another reminder that, in design, our personal experiences cannot replace evidence. So we defined our focus as nighttime urban insecurity.