Redefining personal safety with innovative self-defense and emergency notifying technology through affective design

Abstract

This study focuses on enhancing personal safety in the Philippines, specifically regarding street crimes like rape, assault, robbery, murder, pickpocketing, and theft. The objective is to develop a self-defense product that improves user safety through enhanced and innovative design and efficiency. Utilizing quantitative methods, the study examines factors influencing Filipinos' safety perception, identifies design improvements for existing self-defense tools, and assesses their impact on efficiency ratings. A comprehensive literature review underscores the importance of self-defense weapons and the need for innovative solutions within the Philippine context, and the utilization of survey was used to consider the insights of the respondents on their environment, crime awareness, and experiences with self-defense tools. The findings inform the integration of effective features—such as stun guns, sound alarms, kubotans, flashlights, and an emergency notification tool—into the proposed product. A work measurement study involving participants experienced with conventional selfdefense keychains confirms the significant increase in efficiency ratings for the proposed product, validating the design improvements. The findings offer valuable insights into factors shaping safety perceptions and influencing the design of selfdefense weapons as the study highlights the proposed product as an innovative solution for improving the design and efficiency of self- defense weapons in the Philippine market, providing users with a reliable and versatile self-defense instrument and may paved way for further developing on integrating high- quality materials, refining location tracking capabilities, and incorporating intelligent features to comply with local regulations.