Background

As of September 22, 2024, the City of Philadelphia Office of the Controller reported that 12% of all shooting victims in Philadelphia this year are under the age of 18.

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Philly Truce is a nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia focused on reducing youth violence in schools and the local community. I joined as a UX Writer and Content Designer for Phase 3 of their mobile app, designed to assist Safe Path Monitors. Safe Path Monitors are volunteers who patrol school routes and manage incident reports. The purpose of the app is to allow Safe Path Monitors to create, edit, and manage incident reports digitally. My role was to create and iterate on a chatbot feature that would allow students to discreetly report incidents, as well as refine the UX copy for the app.

The primary goal of this phase was to streamline the reporting process, moving it from paper-based to digital, making it faster for Safe Path Monitors to respond to incidents and de-escalate situations.

This was the first time Philly Truce had a dedicated content team, and we worked in two-week sprints in an Agile environment.

To learn more about Philly Truce, visit the Philly Truce website.

Problem

Currently, Safe Path Monitors rely on paper forms to create and manage incident reports, which slows down the reporting process and makes it harder to track incidents in real time. Students also lacked a quick, anonymous way to report incidents as they happened, further hindering timely intervention.

Challenges:

The paper-based system was inefficient and error-prone.
Students needed an easy, discreet method to report incidents.
Safe Path Monitors needed quicker access to incident details to intervene before escalation. </aside>

Solution

We iterated on the existing Philly Truce app and designed a chatbot feature that allows students to report incidents anonymously and quickly through their phone's native messaging app. This digital solution would make reporting more accessible and streamlined for both students and Safe Path Monitors (now called Peace Patrollers). My focus was primarily on designing the chatbot flow and crafting UX copy that aligned with the user needs and app objectives.

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Jump to any section using the Table of Contents below

Sprint 1: Kickoff, Discovery, & Content Audit Sprint 2: Defining the Chatbot Flow Sprint 3: Adapting Based on New Report Information Sprint 4: Finalizing & Testing Wrap Up: Lessons Learned and Next Steps

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Sprint 1: Kickoff, Discovery, & Content Audit

Research & Context

To start off this phase, I reviewed previous research and testing insights, focusing on the pain points with the current MVP. This included a content audit to identify any UX copy issues, such as inconsistencies in language. My audit revealed minor grammar errors and opportunities to improve clarity, particularly in button labels and instructional text.

Content Audit Examples.png

How might we refine the in-app copy so it is easy to understand and consistent across all screens?

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