After completing this module on User Experience and Service design. When we were first introduced to the topic of this module, which was targeting university students, I was slightly hesitant as I thought this could be quite a repetitive and hard topic to come up with unique ideas. I first thought that everyone's work will be surrounding the same topics like an app to do with the users interests, or accommodation. Therefore I really wanted tot come up with a unique idea, so I started researching. It was actually quite interesting completing this research, because I am in university and have been for a a year plus now, I kind of thought I knew all the struggles that come with university such as money, making friends, finding it hard to focus on work etc. However, after completing research I found a whole new level of struggles people face, including struggles with their safety. When I first found this, I was really happy it is something that hadn't came up in my research and it was efitley something I was interested in.

Especially being someone who doesn't go out that often I always found it really interesting how the drinking culture in univeristy is so prevalent and active. There was always designated days that bars and nightclubs would open their doors to uni students with discounted drinks and menus, so I can defiantly see the appeal, however many people I know would go out 3+ days a week and always be very drunk(which I dont think is a problem) to the point they would maybe forget to be aware of their surrounding and get themselves into dangerous situations. Which made me think, these people are not getting the protection they need. This then sent me into a rabbit hole of extensive research into this topic.

Throughout my research, I gathered a lot of user research from people that go out frequently and research methods such as surveys, empathy maps, user personas and interviews, really let me get a deep insight into this niche challenge students face. I really feel like my final project targets univeristy students needs and corresponds with their behaviour. Something that I thought would make my app really stand out and places user’s needs and behaviours at the heart of the development process was the safety snap feature. A really popular app that students would use on a night out is be real, I knew that the fact that users would be drinking alcohol therefore they might not remember to use the app, so something to encourage them to use it is a similar Be Real feature. Research also supports Halo’s main features including, live location sharing and safety venue reviews.

I definitely feel like learning about service design and all that comes with it will be extremely useful in the future. This was vital to learn about as we will be using all the methods from this project in every project that requires it.

Overall, this project could potentially be my favourite and most proud of app, and it was all because of the amount of research I completed and the user research I gathered, I was able to really target and prioritise users needs. After this term I feel like such a better designer and am more confident in my abilities to create something that works and will improve/ ease a problem in a users life. Also due to the critiques and help from the lecturer and classmates, I feel like I have gotten the support that I needed and am really happy with my final project.