RedLine is a wearable bracelet + parental app that protects children from the red line: the boundaries that shouldn't be crossed.

Project Overview

RedLine is a child wearable bracelet that is integrated with a parental mobile app. Designed with children's joy and autonomy in mind, the wearable is a discreet bracelet that monitors only concerning interactions. With integration to the mobile app, which empowers parents through real-time alerts, RedLine detects potentially dangerous situations for children, like verbal threats, sexual abuse, or bullying— ultimately redefining child safety in the digital future, prioritizing safety without compromising trust.

RedLine began as part of a weekend-long design hackathon competition, Carnegie Mellon's UXA XHacks 2024, where the theme was to design for the children of tomorrow. Then, I individually researched and developed the concept over the span of the next week.

My Contributions

On a team of 3, I helped research and define our user space, frame our solution and features, and design the branding and visual identity of our products. Through ideation to delivery, I brainstormed ways that child wearables could be a detection and prevention solution for child sexual abuse (CSA) and other external threats to safety, and produced the content and visual identity for the wearable, app, and marketing.
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Our project was ultimately awarded Best Presentation, and was a top 3 finalist out of 15 student design teams in the UXHackathon.

In the future, we envision devices that can be smaller but more powerful, and our bracelet conveys that idea. Functioning as a wearable Siri with a privacy-first approach, the pendant's speech recognition is only alerted when there are words or phrases deemed sensitive by our algorithm, and only records concerning interactions where the child is involved.

When a child wears the RedLine bracelet, this app is what connects the parent or guardian to their child. From its integration with the bracelet, the RedLine app analyzes audio cues from the pendant to alert the parent of signs of distress their child may be facing.

These alerts provide information on the nature of the perceived threat so that parents can take appropriate action. Offering detailed insights and identifying patterns, parents can review past incidents and proactively address recurring concerns.

View our hi-fi prototype here.

Discrete Child Bracelet

Safety App for Guardians

An Evolving Tool Set

We began our focus on detecting and preventing child sexual violence, but the nature of our app makes it viable to tackle other situations involving a child's wellbeing and safety. Our app therefore includes detection, notification, and prevention measures for a variety of dangerous situations a child might encounter.

Visual Design and Branding

Designing the wearable with children’s joy and autonomy in mind, we looked towards the mythical side of Chinese culture, specifically the tradition of red knots or threads. This red string bracelet is a symbol of strength and protection against harm, signifying good luck and health, and is often gifted to children.

We drew inspiration from this concept to create a light and non-intrusive product that visually acts as a lucky fashion accessory for the child rather than a tool for surveillance.

Symbolic + Practical Design:
We wanted to keep the look and feel of a traditional red knot bracelet, for both its symbolic strength and its literal strength, as knots are used in virtually all rope systems and known for their holding power.

Secure Construction:
Unlike some flimsier string bracelets, we opted for a thicker knot pattern for more security and to make it extra difficult to lose or break.

24/7 Materials:
We designed RedLine for 24/7 wearability under most conditions, using waterproof microfilaments for the string band, titanium sensors, and aluminum for the main pendant, for its durability and hypoallergenic properties.

Convenient Charging:
Similar to some of today’s wearables, the RedLine bracelet operates on a rechargable battery through a separate battery pack that clamps onto the main pendant, which houses the sensors and primary technology.

With these ideas in mind, we ranked potential service scenarios by evaluating the severity of events a child could find themselves in. We based our rating on triggers, impact on the affected, and potential outcomes, ensuring that RedLine addresses critical situations effectively and promptly. By engaging various societal levels (parents, communities, and institutions), we create joint effort among different levels of society to ensure an environment where children can thrive.

App Interaction Flows

Reflections

🥇 First time UX Hacker

My first design hackathon! It was a rewarding experience and I'm glad I got to participate in a hackathon before I graduated. I really enjoyed the process of ideating and producing a solution with an open-ended prompt, without the restriction of class grading, where the specifications are often much more constrained.

⌛ Task prioritization

Because of the time-constrained nature of a hackathon, I learned how to manage my time between a variety of tasks: balancing our team’s prototyping, designing, and sketching process with researching, writing, and presentation time. I also learned what was crucial to pitch an idea and what parts to flesh out in detail after the event.

🧒 Designing for children & a better future

As a team, we felt that our biggest accomplishment was in tackling such an important topic. Although prevention measures are difficult to put into practice, we want our solution to be starting point in helping detect CSA. In an ideal world, child exploitation should never happen, but we hope our bracelet and app combination can bring families together by opening up ways in which parents can communicate better with their child on their wellbeing or about serious topics.