Galaxa is an inclusive and accessible digital application empowering woman-identifying users to share their experiences in public/third spaces while inspiring new ways of interacting with them. Combining ux/ui principles with an astronomy-themed brand identity, it encourages users to explore spaces within their reach and share their experiences through a crowdsourcing model, encouraging exploration, community support and independent agency for woman-identifying users navigating the world around them while streamlining the co-designing process between women, gender-diverse people, and their local councils in improving these spaces.
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This project was awarded the 2024 Frost* Prize “as an excellent solution to the real-world problem of women’s safety resolved in an eloquent way. The project could be rolled out tomorrow with a net benefit to the community”.
ABOUT
project scope.
If my design projects were movies, Galaxa would be the blockbuster trilogy series. Galaxa’s development is split into three segments: ​
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research and scoping of the problem space,
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wireframing and developing a hi-fi prototype of the solution,
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and testing and validating the solution to a potential market.
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This case study will focus on developing the hi-fi prototype, which spanned across 3 to 4 months of development.
the problem space.
(This is an overview of problem scope research from Phase 1. For the full research process, stay tuned for a blog post.)
In a survey by Plan International Australia, one in five women and gender-diverse people felt unsafe post-pandemic in public spaces. And of those women with disabilities, more than one in four felt more unsafe (Source: ABC News).
This impacts the UN Sustainable Development Goal 11.7, where by 2030, cities can provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.
However - public spaces, including waiting spaces such as bus stops or train stations, were designed without women’s perception of safety in mind. Local councils need more research into what areas require financial investment to improve public spaces, despite difficulty in retrieving holistic, accurate information around women’s perception of safety in public spaces (particularly from young women, or women based in lower socioeconomic areas, or for those where English is a second language).
Simultaneously, there is a struggle for women to find and discover new places quickly due to the overwhelming amount of options, alongside a resistance to explore due to fear of safety.
THE CHALLENGE
How can we support women’s perception of safety when navigating public spaces, while helping the institutions that own these spaces improve them through well-informed decisions?
the approach.
Following my interest in astronomy and the precedent of star navigation as a traditional form of wayfinding in earlier cultures from Phase 1 research, I wanted to develop a digital application that playfully explores the narrative of space exploration, but in the context of public and third spaces.
Rather than a conventional safety app that gave red danger zones that could harm women’s perception of safety, I wanted to treat the experience as an opportunity to see what’s within the space you’re navigating ahead.
This visual metaphor permeates through every design decision made, including:
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The use of gestural swipes to mimic movement in space
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Creating environmental signals in the forms of ‘moons’ within a route or place
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Orbiting movements when navigating multiple steps
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The integration of the Northern Star, symbolising navigation and guidance, as the key defining feature of the logotype.
By creating a system that offers exploration with a confident understanding of the environment through captivating design, this would align with the proposed conceptual framework I developed in Phase 1, aiming to consider how to “focus on creating tranquillity for users and encourage immersion within their community spaces, encouraging increased and prolonged participation” (Cunha, 2024).​
Ultimately, Galaxa resolves the core problem with improving public spaces through its unique visual metaphor: helping women to navigate the public spaces around them, and actually talk about their experiences.
Combined with accessible solutions to ‘escape’ or move away from unsafe or uncomfortable public spaces, or explore safe new ones, the integrated ability to review these public spaces could give more opportunity for increased and consistent feedback, which can support council decisions on how to improve them.
the design process.
Preparation Research and Validation:
To scope out the ideal design outcome, I developed three key goals this prototype needs to achieve:
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Improving perception of safety and accessibility of public spaces for women and gender-diverse people,
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Increasing conversation between women and the design and development of these public spaces,
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And encourage women and gender-diverse people to roam public spaces freely on their own or in groups.
Design precedents: In Phase 1, I identified solution precedents to the problem space, which included campaigns, research institutions and government initiatives. For Phase 2, I looked into technologies and interfaces applied to similar design applications that validates my approach. Design features validated by key precedents included:
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A crowdsourcing model for women’s experiences, utilised within successful precedents set by YourGround NSW & VIC, Safetipin and She’s A Crowd.
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Navigation apps such as Google and Apple Maps
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A location generator function like Randonautica
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And Uber’s post-journey feedback model.
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By combining the features of these precedents into one functional digital solution, it can increase the value of the application for users to engage with the application through regular use for other purposes leading to a consistent feedback model.
Conducting a user survey:
Prior to starting any wireframing and prototyping, I undertook a user questionnaire totalling 40 responses. This came after encouragement and feedback from my mentors in Phase 1 to conduct a survey to determine my target audience and decide if the solution should be for women only or for all genders.
Key findings I found from the 15-question survey included:
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That university students (users aged 18 - 20) would be more inclined to explore new places, alongside ages 53 to 68, which I originally hadn’t anticipated.
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The ability to explore between ages between 21 - 52 varies circumstantially, but the key reason appears to be a lack of ‘time’ to plan things.
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These findings are more prominent with users who have a single employment status or are unemployed, most likely due to having more time.
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Perception of safety in Sydney varies greatly between natives and new residents.
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Time and the risk of wasting time are primary factors affecting users' inertia to explore new spaces.
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Of the 45% of users stating they do not have time to explore new places in their daily lives often, 55% of these users are native to Sydney, and 28% have lived in Sydney for over 20+ years.
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Safety is a key priority feature users want
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48% of users marked ‘safety features’ as the most preferred function needed for a navigation app, with 48% rating route times as 2nd most important. 50% of users marked social features as ‘somewhat preferred’.
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Planning ahead is important in improving a user’s perception of safety.
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53% of users marked ‘planning your trip in advance’ as the most important factor when undertaking a new trip or route.
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And when it comes to engaging with council reporting applications, only 10% have engaged with a similar app, with mixed reviews.
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In hindsight, this survey did contain some gender bias and a presumptive background that would have hindered these results. Of these 40 participants, more than half of them were women, particularly university students and parents, given the context of the network I’ve reached out to. For further validation, I would reframe the introduction of this survey (not as a safer cities project, but as a public space exploration project, with no mention of safety), and reach out to multiple networks to validate the problem space further.
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However, this survey validated that my target audience should primarily target those who identify as a woman or gender-diverse people who may also associate with the experience of being a woman. While I did have a specific user in mind, the app should be designed to be non-gender conforming and accessible for all ages, while still supporting a specific user goal.
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A further analysis of the factors and opportunities for targeting this specific audience further refined my approach to designing the prototype.
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Developing personas:
After careful analysis and justification on the selection of my target audience, I developed six personas for my solution to support, based on various star types:
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Reaching out to council stakeholders for feedback:
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I took the initiative to gain further feedback by reaching out to Catherine James, the Coordinator of Communications and Engagement at Georges River Council. I gained some new insights for the council version of the application, including:
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Understanding cultural differences and expectations around council feedback, and how it could affect user engagement
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How annual budgets affect council decisions to improve public spaces
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Data bias in the advocacy for improving public spaces - usually with an exclusive minority
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And that there are sometimes requests for the team by residents around the safety of public spaces.
User and council goals:
Once I had a thorough understanding of the ideal user persona, I refined the user goals for the application, alongside the council goals for the application. Identifying council goals alongside user goals helped to understand what datasets or information is useful to retrieve from users while meeting their goals, to then provide to councils for feedback.
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One of my earlier goals for this project was to develop a user application and then a council application. However, during the process which you’ll read on, there were many challenges to the scope and timeline, which resorted to me focusing only on the user application. Regardless, it was beneficial to understand from a council perspective, and to wireframe a dashboard in the process.
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challenges in prototyping and creative breakthroughs.
Early wireframing - the challenge to design digitally and the solution to design analogue.
My early wireframing exercises began on Figma following the initial user flow map, where I experimented with how the astronomy motif could be implemented within a mapping function, and what features need to be accessed first.
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However, I faced creative blocks in developing these first wireframes, sticking to the same designs and mental models.
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I resorted to moving from digital to analogue in the process, utilising paper prototyping as the solution. Crafted using pieces of scrap paper from previous projects to develop reusable components I then compiled into different wireframes for the user flow. This led to a creative experimentation that allowed my mind to explore different interactive features that resonates with the initial astronomical approach I considered.
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User experience mapping to redefine scope:
Additionally, I reached out to another mentor, recommended by my tutor, who challenged the initial flow and thought process, asking questions such as ‘how would a user encounter this solution? At what point in their journey? What is the action they are looking to complete?’
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Another key piece of feedback regularly occurring was determining if the application prioritises exploration of local spaces or its safety. Similar to feedback that I received in Phase 1, I realised this was an important issue to address while prioritising the app functions.
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I was encouraged to consider using experience mapping to determine when the user would become aware of, decide and activate the application to solve their problems. I began by mapping out the scenarios between three personas, Yemina, Kiera and Nga (Eve), and how the two different scenarios can be resolved by the application. By understanding when a user would face a problem and when they would need to activate the app, it helped to scope out further what key interactions and components need to be first prototyped.
brand development and integration into product design.
Developing the brand identity:
Following my interest in astronomy and a precedent of star navigation as a traditional form of wayfinding in earlier cultures from Phase 1 research, I wanted to integrate a name that playfully integrates this motif while acknowledging the application’s design as an app made for women and gender-diverse people.
It was difficult to find a good balance between the two themes so that one can easily understand the app’s concept without context. There was starpass, safetynaut, galaguide, starguide and sociopath. But the final name is Galaxa Guide, Galaxa for short. Galaxa is derived from Galaxia, meaning galaxy, and contains the word ‘gal’, a term used to refer to a woman or girl.
I developed its core values of inclusivity, accessibility, community, empowerment and transparency with a mission: to encourage women to explore the spaces around them with confidence, and give them the agency and empowerment to move somewhere fast if they feel unsafe.
For the logotype, similar to the paper prototyping approach, I sketched on paper or on Procreate on my iPad first, before converting my preferred designs into illustrator to iterate further. With my goal to create an accessible design solution, I aimed to develop a logotype that is legible and can be interpreted by those with dyslexia or visual impairments.
Through further iteration, I experimented with transforming the x in Galaxa into a star, to reference the Northern Star usually seen in mapping devices.
For colour, my goal was to create a colour scheme that felt feminine but also non-gender-conforming to encourage gender-diverse people to use the app. Traditionally, a lot of space-themed user interfaces seemed to integrate blues and purples into their design, which I attempted to explore alongside other colour themes. But to avoid making the design exclusively feminine through purples and pinks, I added warmer hues such as orange to make it gender neutral.
Refining the colour scheme, I experimented with using orange hues alongside purple, which I feel are not traditionally feminine colours but feel delicate when combined into a gradient. Some class feedback involved emphasising the word ‘gal’ further through the wordmark somehow, which I enhanced using the gradient for a subtle reference.
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Integrating brand identity into a hi-fi prototype:
Experimenting with the newly developing brand assets, I began to expand on its visual identity through implementation within a digital interface.
Experimenting with the star motif and adding curves similar to a diagram of an orbiting planet with dashes to represent movement across a map helped to perpetuate the star navigation identity I was aiming for.
The movement of the stars in the background also gave a sensation of three-dimensional movement and flow within the design, aligning with my initial framework proposed in Phase 1. This was supported by user feedback, where one user suggested creating a feeling of ‘space’.
user testing and iteration.
User testing was not a stage, but rather integrated throughout the process to regularly validate and refine my UX decisions. I asked test users to experiment with the prototype and observed their interactions and verbal feedback.
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Feedback included the design being very ‘busy’ or ‘noisy’ without colour, and a lack of instruction or mental model to the unique interactions I designed, with no return or direction button on some pages.
I needed to:
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Improve hierarchy and reduce information overload through minimising the colour and amount of components on the screen
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And add more user direction through directive components on more features than I originally anticipated
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And provide more context of or better language on screens that helps users to understand their task better.
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Reevaluation of design against hypothesis:
Reflecting on my initial goal and hypothesis for this project, there was a lack of connection between the final proposed journey and the placement of the user in their real-world setting with the first hi-fi design.
Additionally, when reflecting on potential edge cases that may emerge if this concept was developed, such as having multiple locations or routes to undertake, could make coding difficult and will impact the UI and overall feasibility of the design.
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Additionally, redesigning the journey feature to integrate the orbiting scroll component improved consistency to the graphic narrative, and provided a standard UI template for each unique route and location.
Creating ‘moons’ as safety indicators:
Revising research around the perception of safety around women in public spaces, I developed environment signals as ‘moons’ orbiting around transport icons for greater visibility of the environment, peer-reviewed by other users.
These moons are then coloured according to their status - purple for good/safe/clean, yellow for neutral or okay, and red for bad or a concern. If it’s unindicated or unreported, it would be white.
User feedback validated that the additional moons provided more context to the environment, providing an improved perception of the user’s surroundings.
Implementing and refining the review process:
The review process required a lot of revision and experimentation to ensure users would actively engage in the process, and was the most challenging screen to prototype. In Phase 1, research around the perception of the safety of women, users suggested focusing on factors surrounding the sense of safety, and not the overall perception of the space (Polko & Kimic, 2022). It was complex to intertwine a research survey component while maintaining a visual narrative with this approach - which I tried to resolve by greying out unnecessary buttons that weren’t mandatory for the user to interact with.
enhancing storytelling through accessible design and worldbuilding.
Integrating AI for visual storytelling and worldbuilding:
When prototyping, it was difficult to fully realise the user experience and create a high-fidelity outcome without an understanding of how user personalisation and participation would work within the application, which is a core feature of the design.
Using AI imagery through detailed prompting helped to world-build how the application could be realised by other users, especially in the review process (for example, sharing ideas on activities in public places and local businesses).
Using accessibility as a tool for storytelling in design:
To further ensure accessibility, I made sure that the colours chosen for interactions were able to be viewed through different colour blind users, including Achromatopsia, Tritanopia and Protanopia.
Additionally, using gestural swipes to mimic as though the user is swiping through space, also supports users who may struggle to click buttons or may be disabled short or long term (such as users limited to one arm due to carrying multiple items or a dependent, typically the situation for new parents, or those with limited flexibility, which could be older target users).
the final design outcome:
The final digital solution is prototyped with the following core functions:
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[add user experience map with screens]
Though this Phase did not have business metrics to achieve, it did achieve interesting metrics such as:
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Collecting 40 survey responses across 6 demographic segments in Sydney
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One mentorship from one researcher from XYX Labs, a research lab based in Monash University in Melbourne, dedicated to improving public spaces for women and gender-diverse people
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Feedback and support from three academics at the University of New South Wales
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One stakeholder interview with the local council and one feedback review from a government project lead
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Tested with successful color blind accessibility across 3 key conditions
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And earned a high distinction across both Phase 1 and Phase 2.
design evaluation.
While the design has strong rationale and is purposefully designed to align with its key intention of exploration with safety in mind, it is important to acknowledge the critical caveats of this design process, such as:
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Content moderation: one feedback from my mentor was reviewing how content would be moderated and filtered, especially in regard to sensitive topics around gender-based violence and harassment.
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Limited user feedback - what happens?: Another mentor feedback was edge case where if a user is interacting with a non-participating council area that user feedback may be limited, and there may not be any safety ratings within that space - rendering the safety solution void.
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Limitations on safety: The biggest challenge in designing an app that combines safety and exploration is that safety is not 100% guaranteed. As users have the agency to use the platform in any form, it could lead to stalking or doxing, tracking users, or mislead users with a false perception of safety - especially as perception is subjective and skews for neurodivergent people, gender-diverse people, and women of colour, alongside different times of the day.
Though these queries are more considered for back end development or the transition of the design into code and real-life implementation, understanding and acknowledging these caveats allowed me to consider how the design will adapt to scalability and code, designing alternative solutions such as tags to filter reviews in front-end design.
reflection.
Covering three months of prototyping, Galaxa demonstrated the crucial role brand storytelling and implementing unique design components play in enhancing the user experience within product design. Here are my key takeaways from the project:
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That the research phase only stops if you want it to. Despite undertaking two to three months of research in Phase 1, I still conducted a survey and undertook further secondary research to validate the interactions I’ve designed.
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Accessible interactions are not just functional, but can complement the storytelling of a design.
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Similar to research, feedback should always be undertaken. Through various stakeholders, mentors and users. And not as a separate stage of the design process, but an ongoing process integrated during the ideating and prototyping stages.
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In fact, the design thinking stages are completely non-linear and abstract. One day I felt like I was in the prototyping stage, and the next I’m back to empathising and gathering more research. It did not mean I dropped progress, but means my knowledge has increased through feedback and iteration to know that more validation was required to confirm my theories.
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You can’t do everything in a three month project. Where I initially planned a full application design for both a user and a council stakeholder, I began to realise how large and excessive the scope would be, and by stretching too thin, the final outcome would not have been as effective.
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Utilising my public relations background, I regularly critiqued the framing of my interactions and its implications. For example, a ‘bad’ perception of safety on a route is highly subjective. Would this fearmonger women further rather than support their desire to explore? This is what I’m exploring in Phase 3.
what's next?
There are potential opportunities and activities that I can continue to undertake to validate this idea and see if it can be improved to meet more user needs. For Phase 3 of this project, I participated in the UNSW Founder’s New Wave program and learnt about how to make this solution a product-market fit, met my cofounder, and pitched it to a live audience as a Top 9 Finalist for the program.
For future-thinking purposes, other ways this project could evolve include:
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Developing further the council version of the dashboard and data, which was pulled out of scope due to time constraints.
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Consider how other technologies, such as AR, could be a creative and fun solution towards codesigning processes with city councils while making a family-friendly feedback solution.
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Connect with other research facilities and NFPs with a similar purpose, such as XYX Labs with YourGround, Safetipin, and She’s A Crowd to better develop feedback processes and understand how to navigate around more sensitive topics safely.
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