Overview
From 2022-2024, I worked at Axon on the Real-Time Operations team, where I designed software in close connection with hardware to help public safety workers respond to rapidly developing critical situations in real time. Axon’s mission is to protect life, and as such, the products it releases are all connected to that. I was a key part of developing and shipping features in conjunction with the release of Axon Body 4 (AB4), the next-generation body camera for police. The product that I worked on was Respond, a web and mobile software for supervisors to maintain situational awareness of their officers through tracking locations of cameras on officers, receiving their notifications, and interacting with their cameras.
Project Details:
Duration: 5 months
Team: 1 Product Manager, team of overseas engineers, plus myself
My role: research, strategy, planning, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, engineering handoff
Tools: Figma
Deliverable: end-to-end solution in Figma to be incorporated into software on web and mobile
Primary Job to be Done:
Enable patrol officers to receive the proper support they need more quickly
Background
The vast majority of law enforcement agencies rely on a dispatch center for incident updates, and on a radio for all communication. This applies both when officers are in their car and on foot.
“Dispatch is our lifeline... radio is our lifeline.”
When patrol officers are out in the field, they sometimes encounter situations that require support from headquarters or other officers, such as an unexpected critical incident, mental health crises, location assistance, translation needs, etc. Communicating the intricate, specific details of such situations can be difficult over the radio, as the audio quality can be poor, and information gets lost amidst all of the other radio chatter occurring simultaneously. Hence, the need for more individualized and direct communication arose. The product team decided that this capability needed to be built into the body camera itself, and simultaneously be available to utilize on the Respond map.
Traditionally, the primary purpose of body cameras has been accountability: to ascertain exactly what happened during an incident, and/or to submit the footage as evidence. However, Axon’s body cameras are able to record and livestream, unlocking real-time situational awareness. Prior to the release of AB4, body cameras could only be livestreamed (receiving video and audio) on Respond, but any communication from the viewers’ side still needed to happen over the radio. The inclusion of voice communication capabilities combined with the existing livestream function provided a much more efficient method of addressing specific incident-related needs.
Previously, livestreaming on AB3 required a viewer to activate a livestream on a recording camera. This works when the viewer has a reason to see the bodycam video, but doesn’t give the officer discretion to choose when they want/need to go live. With this proposal, officers can press a button to activate a livestream of their camera. This also changes the value of livestreaming from a feature that the team heard some customer hesitation of “big brother” concerns over, and instead fully empowers officers to decide when they should be streaming.
A livestream with voice comms activated (pre-Watch Me)
However, supervisors using Respond had no way to be made aware that a livestream requires their attention, especially amidst all of the other alerts that show up on the map. Without a unique alert status, it’s hard to tell if an officer needs their livestream to be monitored by a supervisor. Knowing when to open a livestream can add value to officers’ interactions with subjects and help in situations that may require an additional set of eyes or special knowledge (language, medical, de-escalation, etc.). Implementing an efficient solution would strengthen the relationship between officers and real-time crime centers, improving collaboration and trust between different roles in the agency. This would also empower field offers to be more effective so that even if they know that they are not completely equipped to handle a situation, they can still go into it knowing that they have access to backup and support to give the proper response.
User Stories
As a patrol officer wearing a body camera, I can request for my supervisor and/or dispatch to join my livestream so I can resolve an on-scene situation using additional information and/or help.
As a patrol officer wearing a body camera, I can initiate a livestream of my own accord so I can feel empowered to do my job without worrying about excessive monitoring.
As a patrol officer wearing a body camera, I can receive assistance in identifying a person or item so I can corroborate evidence.
As a supervisor or dispatcher, I can easily be notified of and respond to officers’ requests for support so I can provide assistance as soon as possible.
As a civilian in the field, I can have a direct line of communication with an officer’s supervisor so I can feel heard and served.
Strategy
When I joined the project, the product team had already established that the goal was to ensure that important events are flagged and brought to Respond users’ attention in real time so that they know to join livestreams when needed by officers in the field. This initiative needed a name that was short, concise, and easy to understand; hence “Watch Me” was chosen.
The success criteria determined for this project were:
High engagement with the feature, active and regular usage
Improved sentiment and morale among users, deepened levels of trust between patrol officers and supervisors
With the user need, problem, and project goal established, it was time to move on to implementation.
The Respond interface (web shown here) consists of:
A. The map
B. Officer “dots”
C. Officer cards
D. The officer list
E. Alerts
At any given time, any number of items could be demanding a viewer’s attention. Depending on an agency’s alert settings, certain events could automatically trigger alerts, such as a weapon drawn, a siren activated, a vehicle’s speed exceeding a limit, etc. However, none of these configured alerts account for intentional, human-initiated requests for assistance, which is where Watch Me comes in. The challenge was to incorporate a new alert notification that would stand out from all the others because in these situations, every second counts.
Solution and Key Decisions
Visual Indicator and contents
The visual indicator I decided to go with was a purple bubble (dubbed “spotlight”) above the requesting officer dot. Prior to coming to the final decision, I brainstormed several ideas involving various icons, visual treatment, and additional banners. However, I made my final decision because purple is a color that had been established to be associated with livestreaming, but was not yet used, so it would stand out and help the assisting officer zero in on which officer(s) needed immediate attention.
As for the content of the spotlight, at first I thought about using the words “Watch Me”, but decided against it because 1) the presence of the spotlight was already sufficient to indicate a Watch Me request, and 2) that space is valuable because it needs to convey the most crucial information. Hence, I decided to highlight the officer’s name by putting it in the spotlight. The addition of the hand emoji was suggested by one of my teammates, and everyone agreed that it worked well because it was a universally understood symbol for needing attention; hence, there would be no doubt what the whole spotlight was conveying.
I also decided to add the relative timestamp because it would help Respond viewers quickly see which request has been waiting the longest, and address them in order.
Notifications
A system like this is only effective if the intended viewers receive notifications about requests. Notifying users on mobile turned out to be straightforward because we could utilize native push notification systems for apps and hence didn’t need to add anything extra to the Respond app. However, web proved to be more tricky because while Respond already has a notification system, it was poorly designed a long time ago and most users find it to be ineffective. Redesigning notifications on web was definitely a priority for the team, but the scope of that project would be much too large to include in this one, so we resolved to compromise by not changing the existing system for now, but include Watch Me as a high priority notification so that it would appear in a familiar spot, and then use the findings from this to inform the future long-term notifications overhaul efforts.
Final Designs
Flows
1. Mobile, from push notification
2: Mobile, from cluster
3. Web
Prototypes
Mobile
Web
Components
Mobile
Web
Testing, Launch, and Impact
To sync with the launch of the new Body 4 camera, Watch Me (plus the other new features like voice comms) was first released to a few customers so that they could beta test it. I separated my designs into separate beta and launch handoff pages and provided clear notes and specs for engineers, calling out product requirements and mapping specific screens to them.
(The following is an excerpt from this article)
In order test Watch Me, the agency assembled a group of five officers to activate Watch Me at least five times a shift for a period of 90 days. Some officers and command staff were admittedly skeptical, thinking that the new technology was interesting, but may “not have a lot of practical applications”, as patrol Lieutenant Justin Day put it.
However, the test users soon found Watch Me to be a reliable, helpful tool for gaining visibility in the field, including for use cases they wouldn’t have anticipated. Officers found that they could send a clear, unambiguous signal that they wanted or needed a supervisor to live stream in, enabling them bring their supervisors in a the right moment and bring their eyes to the right camera to make an impact. Supervisors, for their part, could know exactly when to start a live stream, see the situation unfold in real time, and make informed decisions on next steps and resource allocation.
For the beta release, the team had to make some small compromises, such as being more generic with copy and not yet including timestamps. Watch Me was fully launched one month later.
Since its launch, Watch Me requests get initiated 1400 times per week and increasing. I visited a customer agency that uses Respond, and they said that Watch Me was a big improvement in their patrol experience.
Overall, the launch of Axon Body 4 was a tremendous success, due in no small part to the inclusion of Watch Me. I am proud to have contributed to Axon’s mission of protecting life through the work I did on this project.