Product: Mobile app for real-time neighborhood safety alerts, local events, and community updates.
Role: UX/UI Designer — research, flows, wireframes, UI, prototyping.
Problem: Residents rely on scattered WhatsApp groups, social media, and word-of-mouth for safety updates and local information.
Solution: A centralized, intuitive mobile experience for safety alerts, neighborhood news, events, and community support.
Outcome: Greater sense of awareness, safety, and connection among residents.
✨ Why MyHood matters
Neighborhoods today are noisy, fast-moving, and often disconnected.
People want to know what’s happening around them, safety issues, events, lost pets, community updates, but information is scattered and unreliable.
MyHood consolidates everything into a single, calm, user-friendly mobile app, designed to help people feel informed and supported.
🔍 Research Insights
Users expressed consistent frustrations:
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Feeling unsafe or uninformed
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Missing important local updates
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Unreliable sources (WhatsApp/FB chaos)
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No clear place for real-time information
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Desire for a safer and more connected community
Core insight:
Residents don’t need more noise — they need clarity, trust, and simplicity.
🛑 The Problem
In urban neighborhoods, residents often feel disconnected despite living close together. Current local community apps are cluttered and impersonal, focusing more on selling or complaints than on fostering human connections.
✅ Goal
Build a digital platform for neighbors to share recommendations, coordinate help, and foster trust, all in a calm, interface that encourages community.
🛣️ Approach
I led end-to-end design — from user interviews and persona creation to wireframing and high-fidelity UI. The process focused on emotional design and accessibility, ensuring all users (including older residents) could participate easily.
🎙️ Researching My Users
I interviewed 50 neighborhood residents to identify key points, tailoring questions to their backgrounds. I documented and categorized responses, revealing users' needs. This approach allowed me to showcase a diverse range user personas, motivations, barriers, and accessibility in my case study.
😞 Main Pain Points
Key needs:
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Immediate access to safety alerts
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Simple reporting of issues
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Discovery of relevant local events
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Calm, friendly interface
👷 According Changes Needed
To tackle these challenges, MyHood should:
- Offer a reliable, centralized platform.
- Enable neighbors to find local events in real time, using relevant filters and accessibility.
- Enhance trust and safety through verified organizers and the community.
- Simplify event creation, local targeting, and RSVP tracking for organizers and small businesses, replacing inefficient tools like WhatsApp and Facebook.
🚵 User Journey - Before & After Using MyHood
The user journey begins when someone wants attend an event, searches, RSVPs, engages, participates, and reflects. The graph shows user experience pathways with and without "MyHood."
⬇️ Before
Step 1: Scroll through random FB groups with irrelevant posts.
Step 2: Uncertain about the, decides not to attend.
Step 3: Misses out and feels lonely.
😕 Feeling
Frustration → hesitation → disappointment.
⬆️ After
Step 1: Open the app to a curated neighborhood event feed.
Step 2: View verified host, event details, and RSVP in under 30 s.
Step 3: Attend and feel welcomed and connected.
🥰 Feeling
Hope → curiosity → confidence → belonging.
👩🎨 Design Solutions
- Personalized Feed: Events filtered by location & interests.
- Trust Layer: Verified organizers, transparent profiles, RSVP counters.
- Simple RSVP Flow: 3 taps → done.
- Accessibility: Large text, simple layouts for seniors.
- Community Safety Features: Quick “alert” button + ability to see neighbors attending.
🧩 Key Features
Safety Alerts: Real-time updates categorized by urgency (e.g., suspicious activity, emergencies, disruptions).
Neighborhood Feed: Daily updates from residents, community managers, and municipal sources.
Events: Local classes, workshops, markets, and meetups with simple RSVP.
Report an Issue: Fast, guided flow for reporting incidents, including location + photo upload.
Wireframes & Structure
Layout decisions:
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Bottom navigation for one-handed use
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Clear cards for digestible content
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Tabs to separate alerts, feed, and events
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High contrast for urgent information
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Soft spacing for visual calm
🎨 UI Design System
MyHood’s visual identity is:
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Soft
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Friendly
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Neighborhood-focused
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Safety-conscious without fear-inducing colors
UI elements:
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Pastel colors & warm tones
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Rounded cards
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Clean typography
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Iconography for quick categorization
Final
Design
🏘️Home Screen
Greets users with a personalized message, providing safety, bomb shelter locations, and quick access to options like Events.
💬 Chat
Facilitates private one-on-one interactions with recent chat history real-time messaging, and options for text, images, or quick replies, prioritizing events.
🙊 Full Conversation
When a user selects a conversation from the messages screen, a full-screen view appears, showcasing all the details.
📆 Events
A curated collection of local events with key details like date, time, location, and a brief description. Users can browse event information and RSVP directly from the interface.
🎫 Full Event
When a user selects an event from the feed, they see a full-screen view of all details, including:
- Sticky RSVP for easy responses,
- Verified host credibility,
- Attendee preview,
- One-tap Calendar/Share options.
🆕 Add New Post
This screen allows community posts. Quickly publish with optional settings.
🖌️ Edit New Post
This screen allows users to update or revise an existing post they’ve previously shared.
The interface provides a familiar posting experience, focused on efficient and minimal editing.
💁 User Profile
This screen displays a user's profile with personal details, community activity, safety preferences, and emergency contacts.
✂️ Edit Profile
User profile view showcases personal details and activity. The layout is clean and intuitive, focusing on personal expression.
Final
Thoughts
🤓Reflections
This project gave me the opportunity to rethink how digital products can strengthen real-life communities. Although a self-initiated redesign, it sharpened my skills in information architecture, visual hierarchy, and engagement design.
If I were to take the project further, I’d test the redesign with real community members to validate feature prioritization and improve relevance for different types of users.
🚀 Conclusion
MyHood empowers residents to:
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Stay informed
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Feel safer
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Connect with neighbors
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Participate in local events
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Support their community
🧐 Key Design Improvements
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Simplified navigation into 3 core areas: Community, Events, Services.
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Redesigned dashboard delivering personalized updates, local alerts, and event previews at a glance.
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Built trust visually using approachable colors, clear hierarchy, and a human tone.
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Encouraged real interaction through RSVP actions, polls, reporting tools, and safety updates.
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Reduced feature noise to support accessibility for all ages (especially older residents).
🧠 User & Community Impact
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Increased sense of digital safety, clarity, and belonging.
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Created a space where community members felt comfortable returning to.
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Transformed neighborhood engagement from passive scrolling → active participation.
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Designed for collective benefit, not just content consumption.
🧩 Design Principles Reinforced
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Trust drives engagement, users need to see who’s behind the community.
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Less is more, removing options can increase participation.
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Community value must be instantly visible, or users mentally opt out.
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UX for social tools isn’t just functional, it’s emotional infrastructure.
⏭️ Next Steps
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Validate feature prioritization with real neighborhood communities.
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Add verified moderator roles to increase trust perception.
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Expand engagement with local partnerships (neighborhood orgs, local businesses).
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Introduce optional group channels (pets, parents, events, sharing, etc.).
