#interaction design #physical computing

Ring-ring is a device that combines hardware and software which can help young ladies stay safe when some dangerous things happens.

The device includes an application and a physical ring with pressure sensor and circuit. When users are facing a particular dangerous situation, they can send message to ask for help by touching the ring for 8 times or make a loud alarm by keep touching for 8 seconds.

Mary is 26 years old, and usually works until 9 pm on weekdays. There is a dark, few-people street on her way home. One day, on the walk home, she noticed that a guy is following her for a long time. She felt scared but had no idea that what can be a tool to protect herself...

At first, I brainstormed the possible reactions as much as possible that ladies may take for protecting themselves in that particular moment. According to different situations, I analysed that whether the reactions are going to be taken or not in each situation, and if it will be taken, then I will mark it by a corresponding color. After that, I chose the most frequently-used reactions and combined or integrated some of them to help me figure out what will be the useful product's functions for my target group.

I found all of these could be divided into two types: "Loud Reaction" and "Silent Reaction". The "Loud Reaction" is more like making a really loud sound, for example an alarm, to attract the attention from other walking people to ask for help, and to let the evildoer feel scared and nervous to get away. And for the strong light, if the lady hopes to find a chance to escape the dangerous situation, the strong light can disturb the evildoer's vision for a few seconds (without real harm) to help her buy time to escape.

But in some particular situation, "Loud Reaction" may exasperate the evildoer and lead us to an even more perilous situation than before. So "Silent Reaction" could be a good way to ask for help by sending massages and sharing locations to family, friends and even police man. However I'm not sure about the "remember the face", because it might be not easy to take a photo at that time, or perhaps it can be changed to record the voice, - both of them are used for preserving evidence.

This is a storyboard which I want to show the user journey. User needs to buy the ring and at the same time down load the App for setting information. When they begin to explore the App, they can get the introduction of the product, pair the Ring with the App, and set Emergency Contact and their own "asking for help" message.

When someday they are in danger, they can keep press the ring for several seconds to turn on the very loud alarm from their phone [Loud Reaction], or they can touch the ring for more than 5 times to send a secret message to their Emergency Contact (family, friends or police man), and also can share their location at the same time [Silent Reaction].

So this project including a physical ring, an App, and the circuit & Arduino programming to connect these two things.