Take Back the Trail
Addressing mid-run sexual harassment
Timeline
2017-2020
Founder
Skills
Product development, design thinking, design research, user testing, consumer electronics, rapid prototyping, UX design, Adobe Creative Suite, communication, leadership
Goal
Enable female runners to feel safe from sexual harassment and physical harm while running in public spaces
The Data
According to a 2017 study by Runner’s World, 31% of female runners have been followed by a person in a vehicle, on a bike, or on foot.
In my own 2018 survey of 123 female collegiate student-athletes, 95% have been verbally harassed while running.
Our Mission
Women are told to never run alone, avoid isolated routes, and leave their headphones at home.
That is not a real solution.
We are determined to make one.
We started this process by conducting empathy interviews with female runners to better understand the problem of mid-run harassment.
We elicited stories and emotions by asking “tell me about a time when…” and “why?”
Megan
“In that moment I just wanted to disappear[…] I don’t know what I would’ve wanted to do other than just get out of the situation.“
Emilia
“[A harasser] had found me, and that made me really, really scared because there was no one nearby. But, I didn’t want to turn around and act like I was afraid, so I just kept running.”
Next, we made a survey and sent it to all of the collegiate athletes from Lehigh University’s Women’s Varsity teams in order to gain a greater quantity of information. We received 123 responses.
We then prototyped our first product: an armband with a safety alarm.
Alarmband
Many runners own safety devices like mace and safety alarms but never bring them on runs.
We decided to integrate a safety device into a product that runners already use: an armband.
Integrated into the armband is a 120db safety alarm (as loud as a rock concert). It is activated by pulling out a loop, grenade-style.
We learned both from speaking to runners and from our survey, that many runners do not like armbands, and many don’t even run with their phones.
Runners also prefer to run with as few things as possible, so a less bulky solution would be a much better fit.
Many female runners wear performance watches. We used this new information, combined with user feedback, to pivot.
Watch-Out
Runners are more likely to wear a watch than an armband.
Runners also prefer to bring nothing on their runs, so the optimal product would go unnoticed.
We redesigned the same 120dB alarm to be as small as possible and attach pop-on style to a running watch.
We couldn’t verify that a safety alarm would be more effective than screaming. The purpose of the device is not to make runners feel safe, but to be safe. Also, a 120dB alarm might harm to the runner’s ears.
Our first two concepts focused on physical safety and the fear of physical harm. Neither of these solutions addresses verbal harassment specifically, so we pivoted to a solution that does.
Safest Route
Our next idea is an app like Waze for harassment.
Safest Route is a normal run-tracking app, but it gives you the option to drop a geo pin where and when you are harassed in real-time.
These geo pins would pop up or send notifications to other runners. The app could generate detours and different routes based on the reports.
While one runner we spoke to suggested a very similar idea unprompted, many others were adverse because they do not run with their phones.
It is a reactive, not proactive solution, and it also relies upon the notion that harassers are stationary or tend to go to the same places. What would prevent harassers from having access to the app? And what would prevent bias in reporting? It was time to reevaluate our approach.
Back to the Start
I took a break to learn more about the design thinking process and to reflect.
We went back to the “define” stage in order to come up with more innovative ideas.
How Might We?
“How Might We” is a brainstorming technique that uses constraints to generate new directions and categories for ideas.
Ex. How might we make catcalling a stranger like catcalling your mother?
False Facts
“False facts” consists of rapidly generating statements that are “false,” the opposite of your assumptions, to cause creative idea generation.
Ex. Catcalls are encouraging.
Idea Generation
Based on the categories we defined in “How Might We” and “False Facts,” we generated ideas on sticky notes rapid-fire.
We realized that as a team, Jess and I are both builders, makers. So, we zoned in on creating a physical product given everything we’d learned.
We know mace or pepper spray is a product that makes runners feel safer, but one that they forget to bring. Our latest iteration takes advantage of products runners always bring- shoes and sports bras- and integrate pepper spray into those products.
Mace Holster
A new way to attach a small canister of mace to shoes or sports bras. This was the final concept prototyped.
The End!
I decided to wrap up this project. Thank you for joining me on this journey!