Master's Thesis Project / Halo
Halo is a mobile app concept designed to surface patterns of street harassment in Metro Manila. Rather than positioning itself as a safety or navigation tool, Halo reframes harassment reporting as a civic visibility problem, one that can be addressed through aggregated data, community validation, and structured requests for systemic change.
This case study focuses on Phase 2 of the project, where I deliberately reduced scope and technical ambition to create a product that is ethically grounded, realistic, and testable.
This project includes an exploration of AI-assisted design workflows. ChatGPT was used to help structure the product brief and translate design intent into detailed interaction and logic prompts, while Figma Make was used to generate and iterate on an interactive prototype. All design decisions, constraints, and ethical guardrails were defined and validated by me.
AI was used as an execution and acceleration layer, not as a replacement for design judgment.
Link to Prototype
✶ Type: Master's Thesis (Individual Project)
✶ My role: UX/UI Deisgner
✶ Focus: Product strategy, UX flows, Interaction design, Ethical Design
Background & Initial Exploration (Phase 1)
This project began as an academic exploration into how technology could support women experiencing street harassment. Early concepts included wearable-assisted reporting, evidence capture, and safety-oriented route guidance.
While these ideas aimed to empower users, they also revealed significant risks:
➡️ Wearables and media capture introduced surveillance and consent concerns
➡️ "Safe Routes" implied guarantees the system could not responsibly make
➡️ High-precision location data increased privacy and liability issues
➡️ Evidence-based reporting shifted responsibility onto victims
At this point, the challenge was no longer how to build more features, but whether the direction itself was responsible. This led me to pause and fully reframe the problem.
Reframing the Problem
Many safety-oriented products unintentionally:
➡️ Create a false sense of protection
➡️ Encourage avoidance rather than accountability
➡️ Shift systemic problems onto individuals
Halo did not need to tell users where to go or how to stay safe.
Instead, it needed to answer a different question:
"How can recurring harassment become visible without exposing individuals or promising safety?"
This reframing shifted Halo's role from personal safety to collective awareness and civic escalation.
Design Principles
These principles helped me with my design decisions on Phase 2:
Aggregation over precision: where patterns should matter more than exact locations.
Validation without social exposure: shared experiences should be acknowledged without comments or messaging.
No safety guarantees: the language and UI should avoid “safe,” “danger,” or alerts.
Civic escalation, not virality: the action happens through formal requests, not feeds.
Privacy by default: No photos, no videos, no public profiles, no identity verification.
Phase 2 Goals
I started the second phase of Halo to transition this project from an academic concept into a credible, testable product experience. I prioritized restraint-driven design, where removing features was often more important than adding new ones.
The goals were to:
➡️ Reduce ethical, legal, and usability risk
➡️ Improve clarity and emotional safety
➡️ Validate core user flows through usability testing
➡️ Enable collective civic action without social pressure
Information Architecture
I designed the new Halo to keep critical features always accessible, ungated by identity or location, and anchored to place rather than profiles.
Core Experience
✦ Incident Map (Awareness, Not Navigation)
The map is Halo’s central interface. It displays aggregated incident markers across Metro Manila, helping users understand where patterns recur, not where danger exists. I want to avoid fossilizing areas or implying risk guarantees. So,
➡️ by default, the map shows incidents from the last 30 days,
➡️ time filters adjust visibility, not system logic,
➡️ zoom changes context, not data precision, and
➡️ no routes, no directions, no user tracking required
Map overview (zoomed-out)
Map overview (zoomed-in)
Map overview (filter)
✦ Structured Incident Reporting
Reporting is guided, optional, and trauma-informed. I wanted to keep reporting informational rather than evidentiary.
So the flow captures:
➡️ Type of incident (structured categories)
➡️ Approximate time and generalized location
➡️ Optional context
➡️ Impact on the user (multi-select)
and I intentionally excluded:
➡️ Media uploads
➡️ Real-time reporting
➡️ Identity disclosure
Incident Report flow
✦ Community Acknowledgement (w/o Interaction)
I want to validate shared experiences without enabling debate, harassment, or performative engagement, therefore instead of comments or reactions, Halo uses acknowledgements.
Acknowledgements are anonymous, additive, and most importantly non-reversible.
Incident Report details
Acknowledgement Interaction State
✦ Community Action Requests (CAR)
When recurring incidents in an area meet internal criteria, Halo enables a Community Action Request.
CARs:
➡️ Are system-initiated, not freely created
➡️ Are place-based, not user-centric
➡️ Focus on concrete interventions (e.g. lighting, visibility)
The creation flow is deliberate:
Context & expectations
System-generated issue summary
Select proposed actions
Optional rationale
Review & submit
Once created, others can support the request and track its status.
CAR screen with status timeline
✦ Know Your Rights
Education is a core function of Halo, not a secondary feature.
The Know Your Rights hub explains:
➡️ The Philippine Safe Spaces Act
➡️ Definitions of harassment
➡️ Formal reporting options
➡️ Support resources
Incident Report flow
Validation & Next Steps
Phase 2 started because I want this project to be testable, not speculative.
For the next step, I planned usability testing focuses on:
1️⃣ Onboarding comprehension
2️⃣ Reporting flow clarity
3️⃣ Map interpretation and Area Summaries
4️⃣ Understanding Community Action Requests
Success will be measured by:
1️⃣ Users correctly explaining Halo’s purpose
2️⃣ Confident completion of core flows
3️⃣ Low emotional distress during use
4️⃣ Clear understanding of what Halo does not promise
Insights from testing will inform further iteration, particularly around copy clarity and flow sequencing.
Business & Sustainability Considerations
Halo is now positioned as a civic infrastructure, not a consumer safety product. The potential paths that I see for sustainability include:
➡️ Partnerships with local governments and barangays
➡️ NGOs and women’s rights organizations
➡️ Urban planning and infrastructure audits
➡️ Grant-funded civic technology initiatives
➡️ Academic and policy research collaborations
By remaining privacy-first and non-extractive, Halo demonstrates how digital products can support public accountability without relying on surveillance or attention-driven models.
