Negotiating Safety: The Cognitive and Emotional Labor of Urban Mobility for Women
How might we make the pedestrian experience safer for women in NYC?
Ethnographic Research
Observation
Diary Study
User Interviews
Prototyping
Conducted in collaboration with Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) and the Center for Digital Experiences at Pratt Institute, this research supports TMNA’s broader initiative to design for pedestrians with diverse cognitive and physical abilities.
Role
User Research
Research Report
Observation
Diary Study
Duration
4 weeks
Team
Sole UX Consultant
Tools
Figma/FigJam
Panelfox
BACKGROUND 🔍
This project investigates how safe pedestrians, and particularly women, feel on the urban streets. Set in the context of New York City, the research aimed to surface the lived experiences, behavioral adaptations, and environmental triggers that shape how women navigate public space.
Drawing on ethnographic methods — including semi-structured interviews, diary studies, and observational insights — the study explores the emotional and cognitive labor embedded in daily pedestrian life.
The research centers the complexity of safety as a dynamic, situational experience, laying the groundwork for future explorations into systemic and technological interventions and supports the ongoing research conducted by TMNA that aims to cater to varied cognitive and physical needs of pedestrians worldwide.
THE SCOPE 🚨
No two individuals experience streets the same way — owing to different cognitive and physical abilities. Toyota is set to understand this varied experience to design equitable pedestrian experiences!
This study aims at understanding the pedestrian experience of women in NYC. The motivation to choose this target user group stems from my research support to World Bank's efforts in understanding women's urban experiences in India.
While the World Bank study dives into policy and service-design related recommendations — this study aims at providing technological interventions from a UX standpoint.
How might we make the pedestrian experience safer for women on the streets of NYC?
PROBLEM
Urban environments often place the burden of safety on women, who adapt their behavior—choosing specific routes, walking faster, avoiding eye contact—not because streets are inherently unsafe, but because they don’t feel intuitively secure.
Existing solutions focus on personal defense rather than addressing the systemic and spatial conditions that shape these experiences.
GOAL
This research aimed to explore how women perceive and navigate safety while walking alone in NYC.
By using qualitative methods to surface patterns in behavior and environmental perception, the project sought to deepen understanding of how safety is experienced and where urban design might better support it.
PROCESS
At first the problem statement was refined to define the scope of the research. Subsequently, to understand and dive deep into the research question, the study followed a three-phase process. Phase I involved ethnographic research comprising semi-structured interviews, diary studies, and site-based observations to investigate how women perceive and manage safety while walking alone in NYC.
Using inductive qualitative methods, in Phase -II, the research analyzed these inputs to uncover behavioral adaptations, emotional patterns, and environmental factors shaping the pedestrian experience.
In Phase III, the study translated these insights into early-stage prototypes—conceptual technological interventions aimed at exploring how community-driven solutions might embed a sense of safety into everyday urban life.
REFINING THE PROBLEM STATEMENT
HOW I ENDED UP WITH THIS PROBLEM STATEMENT?
While I started out with a different problem statement aiming ot understand how might we provide a safer and smoother pedestrian experience for those with a carry-on, multiple research activities helped me redirect my research scope to an issue that is more universal.
Abstract Laddering the original problem statement
Edge Case & Peripheral User Analysis
As these activities progressed, safety—especially for women—consistently surfaced as a key concern. Recognizing the widespread nature of this issue through some desk research, the study pivoted to explore women’s pain points related to walking safely in NYC.
PHASE - I
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
To learn the unique problems faced by women as they walk on streets under different daily circumstances, the study focused on learning their lived experiences.
6 interviews, 80 diary study inputs, and 2 observations, helped understand the nuances of a woman's experience and their perception of safety on the streets of NYC.
In order to gauge if there is any difference in the experiences of men and women, 2 reddit discussions were initiated. This was done to get a broad understanding of any glaring difference.
the Jobs-to-be-done framework provided direction in conducting primary research activities
OBSERVATION INSIGHTS
Safety was initially assessed through observational research conducted in both a high-traffic urban street and a well-regarded, safety-rated neighborhood.
To explore the contrasting factors that contribute to perceptions of street safety, observational research was conducted in two distinct environments: a high-traffic area (Union Square) and a comparatively safer neighborhood (Tribeca).
The contrast between Union Square and Tribeca highlights how perceived safety hinges less on crime statistics and more on environmental and social cues. In Union Square, safety declined as crowds thinned and lighting deteriorated, revealing how quickly a space can shift from active to uneasy.
Solo women walked with urgency and guarded expressions, underscoring the emotional labor tied to navigating public space. In Tribeca, consistent foot traffic, family presence, and active storefronts contributed to a baseline sense of ease—even on side streets where isolation briefly introduced discomfort.
These observations suggest that intuitive safety emerges not from surveillance or policing, but from environments that signal visibility, vitality, and shared public presence.
DIARY STUDIES
20 participants recorded their daily experience of walking on the streets of NYC for a week
To understand how women experience safety in real-time street contexts, a week-long diary study involving 20 participants was conducted, all women aged 21–30, commuting in NYC. Each participant was asked to log their walking experiences daily via a structured Google Form. The prompt encouraged them to reflect on both positive and negative moments that impacted their physical and emotional comfort while walking.
Participants recorded details such as:
Time and location of commute
Lighting and weather conditions
Emotional response and safety rating (1–5 scale)
Observed environmental or social factors (e.g., crowd density, noise)
Actions taken to enhance their own safety
Optional image uploads and open-ended reflections
The goal was to capture the nuanced, situational nature of pedestrian safety through personal, moment-by-moment accounts—offering a layer of depth that complements interviews and observational data.
"Even when nothing goes wrong, I’m constantly alert — scanning people, checking behind me, walking faster. It’s exhausting.”
— Diary Entry by Participant 3
INTERVIEW INSIGHTS
Speaking to women unraveled the mental load behind everyday walks.
The conversations unfolded stories that were at once ordinary and revealing—descriptions of hurried footsteps, mental route calculations, and the instinctive act of switching from two earbuds to one. What emerged wasn’t a singular definition of danger, but a consistent narrative of alertness and adaptation.
"It’s not that I feel unsafe all the time — it’s that I can’t afford to feel safe. The moment I let my guard down is the moment something could happen.”
— Interview Participant 1
The conversations unfolded stories that were at once ordinary and revealing—descriptions of hurried footsteps, mental route calculations, and the instinctive act of switching from two earbuds to one. What emerged wasn’t a singular definition of danger, but a consistent narrative of alertness and adaptation.
WHY IS THIS GENDERED LENS IMPORTANT?
REDDIT DISCUSSION
While safety is an overarching issue faced by everyone, for various reasons men and women experience streets in a very different manner
The study employed the insights from two reddit discussions, soliciting safety perception of women from one post and from men through the second one. This helped gauge an primary understanding of the difference in the way men and women feel safe on the streets of NYC.
A reddit comment encapsulating the difference in safety perception between men and women
Overview of men's perception of safety
Most men in the Reddit thread reported feeling generally safe in NYC, with only occasional mentions of discomfort in specific areas or late-night situations. Unlike women, they rarely described behavioral adaptations or safety strategies, often relying on confidence or awareness.
While some acknowledged risks, safety was seen as the norm—not something that required ongoing effort. This highlights a stark gender divide: where women anticipate risk, men largely assume safety.
Overview of women's perception of safety
PHASE - II
RESEARCH ANALYSIS
Women constantly monitor their surroundings, plan routes, and adjust behavior — because safety isn’t built into the environment. The emotional labor of staying safe is offloaded onto the individual.
Excerpt of Thematic Analysis
INSIGHT #1
Safety is Self-Managed, Not System-Supported
Women constantly monitor their surroundings, plan routes, and adjust behavior — because safety isn’t built into the environment. The emotional labor of staying safe is offloaded onto the individual.
INSIGHT #2
Street Safety Is Not Gender-Neutral
Urban space is built for a "default user" — and that user is not a woman. Men and women move through the same streets with entirely different emotional realities and risk calculations.
INSIGHT #3
Safety is Contextual, Not Constant
A street that feels safe in the morning may feel threatening at night. Safety is shaped by time of day, lighting, crowd presence, and familiarity.
INSIGHT #4
Safety for Women Comes at a High Cost
Women regularly spend time, money, and mental energy to feel safe — rerouting, paying for rides, or avoiding plans altogether. This cost is invisible, but constant.
CONCLUSIONARY INSIGHTS
The cognitive and emotional labor required to navigate urban spaces safely often falls entirely on women, with little systemic support to share that burden.
Women take up multiple measures to make themselves feel safe and in control. These measures come at the cost of anxiety, constant risk-calculation, and in some cases out-of-pocket expenses.
For women, what should be a simple walk becomes a daily calculation of risk, cost, and survival.
This constant state of being on edge and thinking about the worst case scenario and trying to be ready for it with whatever existing means possible takes an undue toll on the daily lives of women. This underscores a constant situational emotional distress among them.
PHASE - III
DESIGN SOLUTIONS
Ideation matrix to help understand solutions across infrastructural, tech, and program POVs
HOW CAN THIS BURDEN BE SHARED?
While the focus of this study was on exploratory research, several early design and technological concepts began to emerge in response to the pain points uncovered around women’s safety.
These preliminary ideas aim to redistribute the burden of safety, shifting it away from the individual and toward a broader, collaborative effort that includes systems, technologies, and other actors working in tandem to create supportive urban experiences.
01
Google Maps can integrate a 'Safe Route' filter showing the safest routes to destination
During interviews, participants consistently mentioned relying on Google Maps when navigating unfamiliar areas. This insight informed the recommendation to integrate a safety filter directly into existing navigation tools—removing the need for additional apps or effort.
By embedding it into a platform already central to route planning, the feature naturally supports the job-to-be-done when women plan their commutes with safety in mind.
Primary factors that were cited as a signal of increased safety like; street lights, open shops, and pedestrian density could be used the variables that could define the safety score of the route.
Further, a participant mentioned the use of Citizen app to stay alert of any incidents nearby, Google maps can incorporate the data and use it as another variable that would affect the safety rating of a route.
FILTER SAFE ROUTES
Each route among the available options could display a safety rating out of 100, accompanied by a simple dropdown that reveals the factors contributing to that score
“It's surprising how Google has not yet tapped into this [low-hanging fruit]. I can see this as a feature within Google Maps!"
— Toyota Stakeholder
02
A virtual safety app in collaboration with NYPD to help provide a 'companion' in a patrol officer
NYPD OFFICERS AS SAFETY COMPANIONS
A safety app (e.g., by Toyota) lets users activate a virtual security session while walking. It shares their live location, alerts nearby patrol units, and provides real-time check-ins. The session ends only once the user confirms they’ve arrived safely.
03
Beyond technology — better policymaking and urban-planning all through a gendered-lens can help build safer streets
This study highlights that pedestrian safety is not just about preventing accidents—it's about recognizing and addressing the invisible cognitive and emotional labor many individuals, especially women, carry while navigating public spaces.
By listening deeply to lived experiences and surfacing pain points often overlooked in urban design, we can build systems that promote dignity, agency, and equitable access for all pedestrians. True safety emerges when the burden of vigilance is shared—and when design, technology, and policy work together to create streets that feel intuitively secure for everyone.
CONCLUSION
Designing for safety is designing for equity
This study highlights that pedestrian safety is not just about preventing accidents—it's about recognizing and addressing the invisible cognitive and emotional labor many individuals, especially women, carry while navigating public spaces.
By listening deeply to lived experiences and surfacing pain points often overlooked in urban design, we can build systems that promote dignity, agency, and equitable access for all pedestrians. True safety emerges when the burden of vigilance is shared—and when design, technology, and policy work together to create streets that feel intuitively secure for everyone.
IF I HAD MORE TIME
Conduct interviews and diary studies with men
The study could be further enriched by incorporating more first-hand qualitative data, particularly from men, to better understand and contrast the differing lived experiences across gender. Including diverse perspectives would offer a more nuanced view of how safety is perceived, navigated, and socially constructed in urban environments.
Study the problem from a service design lens
The study also has potential to be expanded through a service design lens, exploring how various touchpoints, such as public infrastructure, transportation systems, and community programs, interact to shape perceptions of safety and how they might be redesigned to deliver more intuitive, collective support.
To building safer and stress-free pedestrian experiences for everyone one step at a time!
You can reach out to me at areen.skd@gmail.com
Copyright © 2025 Areen Deshmukh | Last updated May 2025
