03Operation Safe Escape

Making case information easier to find when time matters

Operation Safe Escape supports survivors of domestic violence, stalking, and harassment. I designed several flows for FLOW, a secure case-management platform intended to bring parts of their email-and-spreadsheet workflow into one centralized system.

My contributionDesigned five FLOW workflows and contributed to the shared component system.
Timeline
Sept — Dec 2025
Role
Product Designer
Scope
Specific flows within FLOW
Focus
Product design · Research · Design systems
Client
Operation Safe Escape
Survivor case dashboard
Survivor case dashboard in FLOWJump to the core experience →
01The problem

OSE was managing hundreds of cases through email and spreadsheets.

For a small team, keeping up with that information took time away from supporting survivors.

  1. 01

    OSE tracked survivor cases through email threads and spreadsheets while working with a small staff and volunteer team.

  2. 02

    That made case history harder to follow and left the team without one consistent place to review what had already happened.

  3. 03

    Admins and volunteers could spend time piecing together information before they could figure out what someone needed next.

Problem statement

OSE needed a secure way for admins and volunteers to understand a case quickly, keep its history in one place, and hand work off without losing context.

02Volunteer workflow

Volunteers needed to understand a case without reconstructing it themselves.

Robert Gomez, OSE volunteer (composite persona)
Robert GomezOSE volunteer · composite persona

They needed the current need, case history, and next action to be visible in one place.

What he needs

To open a case and understand how urgent it is, what the survivor needs, and what has already happened — then leave a clear update for whoever works on it next.

Access
Only his assigned cases
Handoff
Depends on others’ notes
Records
Sensitive, secure login
Where it breaks down today
  1. 01Sees only his assigned cases, but still has to look for the important details inside each one
  2. 02Can’t tell how urgent a case is, or what’s already been done, without opening it
  3. 03Depends on other people leaving clear notes for him to pick up where they left off
  4. 04Needs to log in and communicate securely, since the information is sensitive

Where he came fromRobert represents the volunteers OSE relies on alongside its small staff. I don’t have interview notes from this project, so he stands for the volunteer workflow described to us rather than a specific person I spoke to.

03My role

I designed several flows for FLOW, a secure case management platform.

My work focused on translating OSE’s case-management requirements into flows for reviewing cases, communicating securely, collecting survivor information, and maintaining forms after handoff.

Role
Product Designer
Shared with the team
The FLOW component set (section 05)
04Design constraints

Safety shaped every part of the workflow.

01Privacy above all

FLOW handles sensitive information about people seeking help, so privacy and safety had to come before convenience.

02An ongoing process

A case can move between survivors, admins, and volunteers over time. The workflow needed to preserve enough history that someone new could understand what had already happened.

03A lot of information per case

Each case could contain a lot of information. I focused on making the most important details easy to find first, with deeper information available when someone needed it.

05Design system

Shared components helped separate flows feel like one product.

OSE didn’t have a full product design system when we started, so our design team built the shared components FLOW needed around its existing logo and typography. Those patterns gave the team a consistent foundation as different flows were designed in parallel.

Palette · buttons · form components
06Mobile-first intake

I designed the intake flow around mobile.

Why

The intake needed to work well on a phone so survivors could complete it without depending on a desktop experience.

Design response
  • Safety Exit stays fixed on every screen instead of moving between steps
  • The intro sets expectations up front: how long the form takes, that questions can be skipped, and how information is handled.
  • A progress bar and section counter show how much is left without anyone having to keep track
Mobile-first survivor intake
07Form builder

The form builder mattered as much as the screens did.

Why

OSE doesn’t have developers on staff, so the team needed to be able to update intake questions after handoff without relying on us for every change.

Design response
  • Multiple question types let admins pick the right input for each question
  • Preview and publish let them test a form before it reaches a survivor
Form builder
The Form Builder lets OSE update forms like its intake questionnaire without needing a developer every time a question changes.
08Core experience

One place to understand a case, update it, and pass it along.

Survivor case dashboard
01

Survivor case dashboard

The dashboard puts every case in one place, so an admin can tell status, priority, and case type apart without opening each one.

  • Sortable columns let admins bring the cases that need attention to the top instead of scanning the list manually.
  • Priority and case-type labels make urgency and category easier to distinguish before opening a case.
  • Export Cases to CSV replaces documentation OSE was putting together by hand for law enforcement
Survivor case card
02

Survivor case card

Opening a case brings the important information into one view, so an admin or volunteer isn’t piecing the story together from separate records.

  • Edit and per-case CSV export let admins update or document one case without leaving the view
  • Send Account Creation Email replaces the email admins were sending manually after escalating a case
  • Priority, status, and case type stay visible on the left, so context stays with the case
Secure messaging
03

Secure messaging

Secure messaging gives survivors, volunteers, and admins one place to talk instead of personal email threads.

  • Role labels and color cues distinguish survivors, volunteers, and admins within the conversation.
09How it connects

One case record keeps context attached as work moves between people.

The intake starts the record, admins review and update it, volunteers can pick up assigned work, and secure messaging keeps communication connected to the same workflow.

  1. SurvivorMobile-first intake
  2. AdminSurvivor case dashboard
  3. Admin · VolunteerSurvivor case card
  4. Survivor · Volunteer · AdminSecure messaging
Form builder (admin)maintains the intake questions after handoff →07
10Outcome & reflection

What we handed over, and what I took from it.

Delivered work

I handed off five connected FLOW experiences: the survivor case dashboard, case card, secure messaging, mobile-first intake, and form builder, along with the shared component patterns used across them.

Reflection
01
Safety changes what ‘better’ means.

Most of my earlier projects were about making a task faster. Here privacy and safety came before convenience, and that changed which options were even on the table.

02
Design for continuity, not just task completion.

I started thinking less about whether one person could finish a task and more about whether the next person could understand what happened before them. Designing the handoff became part of designing the workflow.

03
Useful work isn’t always the flashy work.

Sortable lists and CSV exports weren’t the exciting parts, but they replaced work OSE was doing by hand. I pay more attention now to whether a feature actually takes work off someone’s plate.