The Find My application allows users to share their location with friends and family, helping to keep track of each other in real-time. While effective, its current privacy features are limited.
How might we integrate features within the Find My application to give users greater control and transparency over their privacy and data usage?
To improve privacy and transparency in the Find My app, three new features were introduced, offering users greater control over their location data.
These features provide greater flexibility, mutual transparency, and customisable notifications to improve the user experience.
Users can temporarily pause location sharing without sending notification to their friends upon resumption.
This allows users to manage their privacy without triggering notifications upon resumption, providing more flexibility.
When sharing their location, users have the option to choose whether or not to notify their friend that they’ve shared their location.
This allows for customisable notifications, giving users more control over when and how their location is shared.
Allowing users to pausing location share with one toggle, and providing mutual transparency about when and how location data is used.
Ensuring mutual awareness by notifying both users and their friends when location tracking is active.
A user flow was created to visualise the process a user goes through while using the Find My application. Afterwards, opportunities were then identified to address the HMW statement.
A user interview was conducted to gain a better understanding of current users' feelings toward the application, identifying areas for improvement and pinpointing pain points. The interview revealed that while users found the application beneficial for their safety, a major pain point was their discomfort with the knowledge that their location could be viewed at all times, even by close friends.
Using the results gathered from my research, which include the user interview, current application features, and the existing user flow, I created an empathy map to highlight potential areas for improvement and ensure a user centric approach to the solution.
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The future state of the Find My app includes new features that give users more control and mutual transparency over location sharing.
Users will be able see when their location is being tracked, and the other party will be notified as well.
Currently, friends are only notified when location sharing starts, revealing that it was previously stopped.
To enhance privacy, an additional toggle could allow users to choose whether to notify others when sharing begins. A pause button could also be added, letting users temporarily pause location sharing without stopping it indefinitely.
Once location is shared, the other user gets a notification in messages that the user has started sharing their location again.
When paused, resuming location sharing won’t trigger a notification in messages, allowing users to manage their privacy more flexibly and discreetly.
On location share, the system automatically notifies the other person indicating that their friend has begun sharing their location.
When sharing their location, users can choose whether to notify their friend.
No tracking notifications or Incognito mode. Notification options are for the pop up notifications of the app itself.
Allows users to pause location sharing with everyone. Notifications alert users when their location is being tracked.
After developing the wireframes, the same users from the initial interviews tested the updated features. They reported feeling more comfortable and reassured about their privacy, particularly appreciating the convenience of the pause feature, which allowed them to temporarily stop location sharing without notifying friends when it resumed.
Although the new features added a few extra steps, users felt they were not burdensome and agreed the trade-off was worthwhile to protect their privacy and maintain transparency, even with friends.
Through developing the new features for the Find My app, I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of designing for both mutual transparency and privacy. Integrating these features empowers users by giving them more control over their data, while fostering trust between the user and the app. I learned that while building trust, it is essential to maintain the expected functionality. Ultimately, this project showed that even small changes, like a pause button or customisable notifications, can significantly enhance user satisfaction and privacy.
I faced the design challenge of ensuring users had a positive experience without adding unnecessary screens or steps that could impact usability. It was crucial to give users control over their privacy while keeping the interface simple and intuitive. My goal was to enhance functionality without introducing features that would force users to relearn the app. Additionally, I carefully considered how users felt when notifying friends about location-sharing changes, aiming to balance privacy control with transparency to avoid discomfort when tracking settings were updated.