Supporting Women in India

Client
Devs Without Borders

Role
Lead Designer

Category
Social Impact

Year
2015

THE PARTNERSHIP

A community of builders paired with international development projects creating solutions for health, social welfare, farming, and education for those in impoverished areas around the world. 

SOLUTIONS

• Brand Identity

• MVP Mobile Web-App Design

• UI/UX Design

The Problem

In India, rape, sexual harassment, and the abuse of women are common occurrences that go unspoken due to social stigma or fear of retribution.* Many of these women have difficulty visiting, calling, or finding a support center that can help after these attacks.

*Source: Crowd Voice

Based on reports from 2015, the majority of these sexual and violent attacks against women were done by their neighbour or someone they knew.

70% 

of women living in India endure some form of domestic abuse.

94% 

of sexual assault victims in India know their attacker.

Our Mission

Saath aims to provide a central place on the web for women of India to have accessible, anonymous, and secure support when experiencing post-trauma from sexual assault and domestic violence.

A Community of Survivors

Our solution is a web-based messenger application built to securely and quietly equip these survivors with information, instant help, and emotional support.

1

Help and Safety Nearby:

The phone number, address, and map of the nearest NGO support centers or women's crisis shelters based on the user's mobile device geolocation.

2

Awareness + Education:

Information and additional resources about recognizing and escaping acts of sexual assault and domestic violence are easily accessible in both Hindi and English.

3

Instant + Anonymous Support:

An anonymous multi-member messenger app that connects women with other victims on the webpage. Chats are monitored by social workers and are securely deleted once the app is closed or when a user exits.

Women are one click away from:

Connecting to someone similar to them to talk to and finding a local women's crisis center all while providing them with the safety of doing it quietly on their phone.

By creating an accessible, safe space for these women, they can be exposed to needed support for one another while demonstrating that they are not alone: they are in this together. Saath.

Project Constraints

Technical

Recognizing limitations in a user's quality of device technology and perhaps limited data plan. Building and developing a messenger forum that provided encryption and anonymity for all users.

• Accessible by web browser –  as a mobile web-app, there is no need to download as a native app

• Very low load times – no high res images, colour gradients, animations, or complex interactions

• Developing a username convention – no use of real usernames

Cultural

Providing Hindi as the primary language option.

• Language toggle button – choice of English as well

Logistic

This project is a proposed entry in response to Facebook's Internet.org competition to solve agricultural, social, or economical issues in developing countries that do not have direct or easy access to internet.

• Project timeline spanned 1 month -–deadline was on the horizon

The Identity

Working closely with the Cultural Liaison and the Project Manager, we established a wordmark logo that included colours that were culturally suitable and appropriate to convey our message. Simple, clean, approachable, and warm – we chose a redder purple and a bright orange as the primary palette.

Century Gothic has characteristics that are round, optimistic, and friendly. The font has enough weight to emphasize strength. We looked for icons that symbolize care and kindness.

The idea of togetherness, support, strength, and connectivity are also represented by the visual movement of intertwining knots. This custom “S” resonates well with our values.

Originally, we explored the idea of incorporating a chat bubble to refer to the online support community. 

The MVP

The working prototype was developed to work on lower end, older models of mobile phones with minimal load time, limited imagery, and basic functionality in the case of poor internet and cellular connection in rural areas of India.