My team and I were challenged to design a digital application that solves a significant world problem while being profitable. We developed an app that uses self-reporting to keep people safe from riptides, marine life, large waves, and other potentially life-threatening hazards on the beach.

-----The Problem-----
We originally wanted to focus only on riptide awareness. However, after surveying frequent beach-goers, we discovered that there are many other hazards on the beach that people are concerned about. Consequently, we broadened our scope to include all beach dangers. From our survey, we also found that people were overwhelmingly interested in understanding lifeguard flag communication, also called semaphore. We decided to consider lifeguard translation in addition to the main problem.


-----Our Solution-----
To improve overall beach safety, we considered multiple possible solutions including accessing historical data, giving personalized recommendations to users, and web scraping current local news data. We concluded that self-reporting was the most effective feasible solution. This solution involves users identifying hazards on their beach and telling our app about it. Then, the app shares this information with other people nearby. The intent is for other users to avoid dangerous areas on the beach and stay safer.

Using survey data and insights gained from making a house of quality, we designed an initial wireframe. We tested the wireframe with multiple potential users to gain feedback that was critical in refining our design. In the end, we created a polished wireframe using Adobe XD.

Projections show that by our third year, we would be helping keep over half a million people safe at the beach.


-----Challenges We Overcame-----
One major issue we faced when developing this product was monetization. With a high estimated startup cost and relatively high operating cost, we needed to create a monetization strategy more profitable than advertisements. We devised a way to earn 15 times as much revenue by marketing towards municipalities than we could from showing advertisements.


-----Lessons Learned-----
One key insight I gained from developing this app was understanding the importance of asking my users what they want. As a designer, it is impossible to predict every feature a customer could desire. We were focusing too much on the self-reporting to recognize that users also wanted lifeguard translation. Without explicitly asking them what they wanted, the final version of our app likely would not have had a lifeguard translation feature.

I also learned to never assume information that I am not an expert on. When estimating our startup cost, we assumed the cost to develop an app would be no more than $10,000. This value affected our initial financial projections that said advertisements would be a sufficient source of revenue. However, after doing more research, we found that our estimated startup cost was 13 times higher than our initial guess. If we had not assumed we knew more about a subject than we did, it would have saved us valuable working time.