MyWay – student safety trial

Thank you for being the first people to use the MyWay student safety app!

We co-designed MyWay with a group of women students from Reading at the start of this year. If you want to know a bit of the background story you can read about it here.

Providing feedback during the trial

You are the first people to use this app in real life and your feedback is really important! For the next 2 weeks we are asking you to fill in a 2-minute questionnaire each day to let us know when you use the app, what features you use and what you think could be better. The questionnaire is here – just add it to you home screen on your phone so it is easy to find and submit a new entry each day.

We will arrange follow-up interviews with a selection of you in November to discuss possible improvements to the design. If you are involved in any of these design sessions then we will pay for your participation.

The trial period starts right now, and will run until mid-December. The app will still work beyond then, but by December we will have analysed your feedback and figured out how to improve and refine the app so the next version works better for people like you.

The app is ready for you to install on your phone. It isn’t in the app stores yet, so you install it through Chrome if you have an Android phone or Safari if you have an iPhone.

Installing MyWay on an Android phone

Here’s a short video showing you how to install Myway on your Android phone:

  1. In Chrome open a new tab and go to: https://myway.thingitude-apps.com – and you should see the introduction screens
  2. Open the three dots menu at the top-right of your screen, and select “Add to Home screen”. You’ll get a message telling you it is adding MyWay to your home screen.
  3. Close the tab in Chrome, close Chrome, and find the MyWay icon on your phone.
  4. Open the MyWay app, and agree to sharing your location when prompted – you need to do this so the map works.

That’s it – you have installed the app. The next step is to sign up.

Installing MyWay on an iPhone

Here’s a short video showing you how to install MyWay on your iPhone:

  1. In Safari open a new tab and go to: https://myway.thingitude-apps.com – and you should see the introduction screens
  2. Open the three dots menu at the top-right of your screen, and select “Add to Home screen”. You’ll get a message telling you it is adding MyWay to your home screen.
  3. Close the tab in Chrome, close Chrome, and find the MyWay icon on your phone.
  4. Open the MyWay app, and agree to sharing your location when prompted – you need to do this so the map works.

Sign up to MyWay

  1. Click through the intro screens and press Get Started to sign up.
  2. You can either sign up with your Google account, or by entering an email address and password. If you choose the email+password way then we will email you a verification code which you’ll need to type in to complete sign up.
  3. Once you are signed-up you should be in the MyWay app and you’ll see yourself as a dot on a map of Reading. You should also see on streets around the town centre and university there are little markers showing the level of people movement on the street. In the evening there will also be markers showing which streets are best lit.

Setting up MyWay to suit you

  1. Tap the Menu at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to a set of 3 tabs – Filters, Friends and Account. Please tap on Account, and then in the Location section press the Set Home button. Type your home address in here. Once you have added your home address, the “Take Me Home” button on the map will automatically plot a route from wherever you are to your home.
  2. If you select the Friends tab on the menu this will give you the option to add friends or add a contact. A contact is someone like your mum or partner who wants to know you get home safely but doesn’t want to use the app themselves. Once you’ve added a contact then when you start a journey home on the map you can choose whether you want the app to automatically SMS them to say when you got home safely.
  3. A friend is one of your friends who is also using the app. By adding each other as friends you will be able to see where each other is when they last used the app. Nobody who isn’t your friend will see your location, and you can also hide your location from your friends if you don’t particularly want them to know where you are. If you want to add housemates/friends aren’t part of the trial, that’s ok – you can give them these instructions so they can install the app too.
  4. Anyone using MyWay can report an incident (such as a dodgy bloke, or a fight) by pressing the red Report button on the main screen. Pressing the button puts down a pin on the map for all users of MyWay to see. You can update the details of the incident and give it a severity rating when you are safe by going to your Account tab and tapping My Reports. You can also delete it if you decide you were worrying about nothing.
  5. The Filters tab is where you decide what information you want to see on the map – for example you may not be interested in which streets are well-lit, or you may only want to see reports that are medium and high severity and logged within the last 30 minutes.

What if I have questions or problems with the app?

If you have any problems or questions with the app please WhatsApp or text Mark on 07771 870731, or email help@thingitude.com

Thank you for caring about student safety

We really hope you find the app useful and enjoy using it with your friends. Many thanks for giving us your feedback and helping to make it work really well for women students.

Mark, Traecy, Millie, Mike and Vil – the Thingitude team.