Peace Of Mind, Pinned

I led the conception to delivery of Pinned Locations, a feature that allows users to stay informed on the safety of themselves and loved ones to boost user engagement and satisfaction by 35%.

CONTEXT

Untapped potential of a life-saving feature

MyShake has the unique ability to preemptively alert users of an earthquake. Despite this competitive edge, they only captured 5% of the earthquake app audience.

INSIGHT

Information without reassurance fails in moments of fear

Research revealed that MyShake's core features failed to adequately support the functional and emotional needs of users' top priority:

The safety of themselves and loved ones.

PROBLEM

The legacy experience felt impersonal with its set it and forget it approach

This gap emerged from the impersonal, clinical approach of the legacy experience—treating critical safety needs as an impersonal set it and forget it interaction rather than an ongoing source of reassurance.

STRATEGY

From passive alerts to active peace of mind

This led to Pinned Locations, a confidence-first safety tool by rethinking MyShake's existing functionalities, now allowing users to stay informed about all locations that matter to them.

IMPACT

"Pinned Locations is going to be really helpful"

Pinned Locations is slated for a 2026 launch after boosting product satisfaction rate by 35% along with its 80% projected adoption rate.

Alongside its conception and delivery, I led the iterative development of the setup flow, ensuring an errorless journey using progressive disclosure and intentional interaction design.

Users can be warned or informed, which ultimately serve the same purpose

With Pinned Locations, users can receive a preemptive warning to take immediate action or simply be notified of the details of an earthquake.

These were originally two distinct features, but their limited availability, complex jargon, and minimal visibility led to low adoption rates, misaligned expectations, and unmet needs.

Realizing that confusion stemmed from overlapping emotional purpose, I proposed to merge the two.

What do users want to see first when they open the app?

Just receiving notifications wasn't enough; users seek reassurance proactively, not reactively.

To support this, I surfaced Pinned Locations front and center on the dashboard, offering users an immediate and intuitive way to check in on themselves and loved ones with a simple swipe.

Any feature can be undermined by a complex setup flow

Despite positive sentiment, usability testing revealed just 17% of users were able to successfully set up a Pinned Location.

Users were skimming past key instructions and limitations, forcing them to backtrack within the flow to correct a previous selection.

So, make it more scannable. Right?

Unfortunately, no. Copy, hierarchy, and visual cue iterations to enhance scannability led to negligible improvements in completion rates as users continued to skim.

Simplicity comes in many shapes and sizes

Here, shorter and easier wasn't the answer. Comprehension, and subsequently completion rates improved dramatically with the addition of steps.

Instead of relying on users to understand the technical limitations themselves, I proposed to break down the flow to limit cognitive overload, facilitating decision-making.

Introducing friction for deliberate selections

I opted for manual progression and leveraged spatial separation between the selection and progress button to encourage more intentional interaction.

Establishing confidence and trust with thoughtful interface design

Clear selected states, visual feedback, along with guiding placeholder text reduced uncertainty, supporting users as they progressed through the flow.

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Understanding the power of designs in critical situations

Pinned Locations was a challenge, but one that made it the most rewarding design I've worked on to-date.

Pinned Locations supports MyShake by surfacing its key functionalities that previously failed to support users needs. Usability testing yielded positive results:

35%

Increase in product satisfaction rate

70%

Increase in successful setup rates

85%

Projected adoption rates

MyShake has the potential to save lives

I feel so privileged that I was able to work on such an impactful project with such an amazing team. I am incredibly proud of what we all accomplished and all the late-night, weekend work sessions were a blast. Thank you.