Treuth

Client: Treuth
Role: UX/UI
Devices: iPhone

Challenge

The CEO from Treuth was an old coworker from my days at Dotomi. He launched an organization focusing on tackling organized retail crime. He came to me with a prototype for an iPhone app that was complicated to use, difficult to navigate and hard to manage.

The app needed to allow private investigators and retail associates in major big box stores to capture evidence quickly when an individual was performing suspicious activities. Such documentation included date, time, a brief description of the activities, pictures for evidence and in certain instances more details like vehicle license plate, make and model.

Process

I worked directly with the CEO and a few users who helped expand on the pain points of what the initial prototype needed to address. Creating alerts was really cumbersome, especially in such high-pressure circumstances. They needed to be able to send these alerts to members of their group or other law enforcement teams so they were aware of situations and take action accordingly.

I broke down the requirements and used the existing app as a starting point to address the needs of the user. After several meetings and workshops, we distilled major requirements into what the MVP would be.

In addition to the user needing a fast way to create and send alerts, they needed to be able to take advantage of a network of organizations called ORCAs (Organized Retail Crime Associations) and leverage their users to collaborate in curbing and fighting organized retail crime. We created workgroups so members of an ORCA could quickly share information related to a case with each other. We also enabled a functionality where a user can follow an alert and keep up with updates as more documentation becomes available.

My approach to design was to keep the design simple by using familiar iOS patterns thus reducing onboarding and adoption issues.

I focused on key areas such as:

  • Filtering alerts based on distance, documentation type (video, photos) and recency

  • Use iOS voice-to-text capabilities so the user could quickly capture notes and describe specifics

  • Enable tagging so users could be notified if an alert was relevant to them

  • Each alert contains a discussion area so members that follow that alert can add more documentation or insight into the particular alert

We moved quickly to develop the app and I worked closely with developers to make sure my design vision was implemented successfully. This included many rounds of QA testing.

Results

We rolled out the app in March of 2021 and are continuing to open up the app to more ORCAs and users. The app has enabled cross-collaboration in fighting crimes with different law enforcement groups across the country. It has also helped recoup tens of millions of dollars in stolen goods and continues to be a vital tool to reduce retail crime.

The next phase includes expanding the use case outside of retail crime and broader categories in hopes to equip law enforcement with more sophisticated tools to do their jobs.