MOBILE APP · SEARCH & RESCUE
Getting volunteers to a search faster
Each year, hundreds of people go missing in Saudi Arabia’s wilderness. Enjad, a search-and-rescue team, built an app to find them faster. I redesigned how volunteers sign up, use the app and coordinate, all in one place.
ORGANIZATION
Enjad Search & Rescue
ROLE
Product Designer
PLATFORM
Mobile app, Arabic
FOCUS
Onboarding, accessibility, chat
REGION
Saudi Arabia
Enjad’s redesigned app for search-and-rescue volunteers.
01
The problem
Volunteers signed up through a long Google Form full of detailed questions, which confused and frustrated applicants.
After filtering, volunteers were organized in WhatsApp groups. Alerts arrived on WhatsApp, so they had to switch between the app and WhatsApp to get critical information.
The result was lost requests and slow response times, which made it harder to help missing people.
The old flow: a Google Form, manual filtering, then WhatsApp groups.
02
The plan
Move the whole experience into the Enjad app instead of external tools.
Cut the registration questions, so signing up is quicker and less confusing.
Rebuild the app to be more efficient and easier to use.
Build chat into the app, so volunteers no longer need WhatsApp.
03
A shorter registration
The original form had more than 50 questions, many of them irrelevant or repeated. I cut it to 27.
I used a wizard pattern: the form is split into simple steps, and each step depends on the answers to the previous one. It keeps the form organized and guides people through it without overwhelming them.
Registration no longer relies on Google Forms. It happens entirely inside the app.
The old sign-up experience.
The new step-by-step registration flow.
04
Rebuilding the app
I redesigned the app with a strong focus on accessibility, especially for older volunteers with visual impairments: new fonts, colors and design system, larger readable type and high-contrast colors.
The old app was cluttered and hard to navigate. Important controls, like report card actions, were buried in a confusing layout with poor contrast and unclear labels.
Before: a cluttered home screen with poor contrast and unclear labels.
05
The new design
The new design gives clear navigation paths and is built around Arabic and its structure, so text is clear and easy to read. Larger fonts, better contrast, logical grouping, intuitive icons and Arabic labels help people find what they need without confusion.
The app also adapts to each user’s role. Administrators, coordinators and volunteers each see the tools and permissions relevant to them; an administrator, for example, can manage every part of the app.
After: clear navigation, larger type and an Arabic-first layout.
06
Chat inside the app
To speed up coordination, I designed a chat feature inside the app that replaces WhatsApp.
Conversations are organized by incident, so volunteers can split into teams. When a missing person is reported, the responsible team gets a message in the app right away, without switching platforms.
Incident-based chat, built into the app.
07
Impact
Registration went from more than 50 questions to 27, entirely inside the app.
The redesigned app is more accessible, especially for older volunteers with visual impairments, with clear Arabic-first navigation.
Coordination moved fully into the app, with no need for WhatsApp.
Together, these changes make the volunteer response more organized, which matters when every minute counts.