Crime Crushing is a platform built to help Law Enforcement Agencies and Crime Stoppers Programs communicate directly with members of the public. The goal of the platform is to increase partner organization’s reach and reduce the man hours needed for agencies to manage online engagement.
By giving exposure to criminal and missing person cases, members of the public are more aware active cases in their communities and are more likely to share information. This leads to higher case closure rates and safer communities.
As the founding designer on a small team, I spearheaded the product design, brand development, and strategic efforts from the outset. Joining before we secured funding, I played a crucial role in our seed round funding efforts by conducting market research, user surveys, product roadmaps and positioning to shape our company strategy.
Collaborating closely with the CEO and COO, I established the project roadmap and lead the design and development of our two-sided marketplace from the ground up. I also acted as the primary liaison with our engineering team, overseeing the handoff, QA, and overall collaboration with their team.
To understand the needs of both Law Enforcement Agencies and community members, I conducted user interviews with officers and surveys of the public to better understand their needs and refine our product market fit. This process revealed that Law Enforcement Agencies need for a system to provide real-time updates, their frustration with posts being buried by social media algorithms and concerns over the man hours needed to communicate with the public.
User research resulted in a spectrum of user segments that the platform would need to engage. Members of the public ranged from those with a low appetite for criminal activity content to those who actively listened to true crime podcasts and would seek out dark content. Our product needed to address users concerns about "doom fatigue" from constant exposure to dark content, yet still offer opportunities for curious members of the public to dig into case content.
Crime Crushing's value lies in its ability to be a trusted source of information for the public, and a method for LEAs to gather tips enabling them to have faster and higher case closer rates. The social media tools available were not serving the needs of either audience, and there was a significant gap in the market for the tools Crime Crushing aimed to build.
A key consideration for the project is the skepticism among the public regarding engagement with law enforcement. Public perception of Law Enforcement and policing agencies has shifted significantly and is increasingly polarized. This underscored the need for a thoughtful approach to design and language used across the platform.
Leading the end-to-end design process from concept to implementation, my key principles were to focus on clarity and engagement, resulting in a clean, intuitive layout and a scalable component system.
The B2B partner case management system was designed to be intuitive for our partners, reducing man hours needed to upload and managed content. Through user interviews key problems were identified:
1. Reduce man hours needed to manage social engagement.
2. Comply with privacy and information security regulations.
3. Increase engagement with the pubic to gather more tips on active cases.
4. Allow the public to easily see all of the cases an agency has posted.
Learning the internal language and case structures common across departments was key to building out a tool that would allow our partners to easily post content in a way that would engage members of the public. The case upload and management tool is flexible enough to create posts for a wide variety of case types and provide updates to the public.
A key challenge was to ensure that our partners would create posts that are easily understood by the public and aid in better understanding of the active cases in their communities. A common pattern among our partners was to rely on jargon heavy content, using law enforcement vernacular in case content. Using tips, prompts and flagging potential changes in the case upload flow lead to partner education and improved communication with the public.
The B2C public facing user home feed displays active cases to the public on behalf of Law Enforcement Agencies. A key consideration when designing the platform was how best to display the content provided by our partners as it often features visually heavy images and violent crimes. Our users range from true crime pod-cast listeners and ex-law enforcement to senior citizens who want to keep up to date with their communities. Through interviews with users, building out personas and diving into user motivations we landed on a solution to best communicate with the range of community members we serve.
The feed features an endless scroll format to maintain user interest, but presents content in varying intensities to mitigate content fatigue. Top-level filters also allow users to customize content in their feed and moderate the type of content they consume. The design system comprises a limited color palette simple component system to facilitate the graphic heavy posts.
The Admin Portal was built to allow the customer support team to quickly solve the needs of our partners as well as give stakeholders access to platform usage statistics and partner performance. Beginning with stakeholder interviews and work sessions with the Head of Operations goals and features were set to ensure that the portal serves our needs today and as we scale over the next few years. Anticipating our future needs and building a robust set of features was a priority so we could focus our development efforts on iterating and improving our B2B and B2C products.
The modular UI components, design tokens, and style guide ensured consistency across web and mobile platforms while enabling quick updates. The reusable components were key in efficient collaboration with our external development team, and offering clear documentation along with shared design files resulted in smooth implementation. The flexible system supported feature iteration, while balancing user engagement and accessibility. Clear calls to action, subtle micro-interactions, and robust icon system enhanced user experience.
Given the sensitive nature of the content on the platform which deals with crime-related content and missing persons cases, the design system had to prioritize emotional sensitivity while remaining user-friendly and engaging. The visual language was designed with neutral tones, soft blues, and simple, non-intimidating icons and illustrations. The type system was built for clarity and accessibility, ensuring legibility across devices and maintaining a AA accessibility rating.
Positioning a company in the law enforcement space presented a unique set of challenges. In recent years with policing and its role in communities coming under increased scrutiny, it was important to be aware of cultural shifts while engaging with members of the public and partner organizations. A focus on community safety and the role that public could play in solving active cases proved to be right messaging.
The content on the platform often consists of mug-shots, security camera footage, and other emotionally heavy imagery. A key goal in the brand and product design system was to focus on simplicity, being perceived as a trusted partner, and not play into any Law Enforcement tropes. The typeface, color pallette and illustration style was designed to pay homage to the vernacular of law enforcement, all while remaining friendly and neutral.
Leading the project through the development cycle, I sourced an engineering partners and coordinated with them to scope and hand-off the user platform, partner case management tool and admin portal. Working closely with our engineering partners as the point of contact I participated in scoping, design hand-off and participated in sprint planning to ensure great communication between the teams. We were able to smoothly develop, test and ship the products by our target launch date.
Crime Crushing represents a significant advancement in improving law enforcement's communication with the community. We have done a soft public launch and we are seeing excited engagement from both partner agencies and the public. We have been gathering user and partner usage data as well as feedback to refine the platform and make iterative improvements for a strong GTM.
