Briefly
Calling emergency services can be the most stressful moment in someone’s life. The app that supports that call should reduce stress – not add to it. This redesign focuses on improved visuals, better information architecture and a handful of new features that make help reachable for everyone.
I redesigned Finland’s 112 mobile app to prove that a life-critical tool can still feel calm, clear, and friendly.
What changed and why
An opportunity to improve the visuals was the biggest reason for my initial interest in redesigning the app. To me, an emergency contact application feels like the kind of thing that should be rock solid, both aesthetically and usability wise.
Under the hood, I restructured and reorganized most of what is in the app. The original Info tab had a lot of duplicate information and a confusing layout. I trimmed out the duplicates and grouped the different topics under appropriate headings to make it easier for users to skim the content and find what they are looking for faster.
The Alerts tab received a similar treatment. Instead of a long list of mostly traffic accidents for the whole country, second-order tabs now surface only the hazards that matter the most.
New features revolve around alternative ways of contacting emergency services that are not in use in Finland – at least not yet:
- Emergency chat for situations where speaking is not possible or desirable.
- Early explorations of VoIP for situations where the only reliable connection is through the internet.
- Potential for video calls to further future-proof the service.
- Informing users of SMS and satellite call options.
SMS used to require pre-registration in Finland, but became available for all users in June of 2025. On iOS, satellite calls are not available in Finland at the time of writing, but I suspect availability will improve in the future.
How I worked
Most of the research came from the Finnish Emergency Response Centre Agency's website, which outlines how operators handle calls and how the agency approaches emergency contacts in general. Understanding their priorities helped to shape mine: keep the app simple and the language plain.
For the design work, I initially did some light sketches on paper, but quickly moved to iterating in Figma. At times I would lean on ChatGPT for information on unfamiliar subjects as well as feedback on my designs and ideas.
Key lessons
Designing for emergencies teaches restraint. The main point of the app – contacting emergency services – is, of course, the key feature. Every bit of content in the app must earn its place because stress (or outright panic) will not leave room for figuring things out in anyone's mind.
Even though I spent some time familiarising myself with the subject matter at the start of the project, I still came out thinking that I should have spent more time in research and discovery. Many of the ideas for new features came to me very late in the process and I can't help but feel I should have thought of them earlier.
Working on the app also highlighted how cellular, voice-only systems clearly lag behind today’s technology. Options like emergency chat or video calls feel like features that should have been part of the emergency responder's toolkit years ago.
Next steps
Things that I might get around to later include: building a prototype, adding a dark mode and finishing some of the long-form info screens that are missing from the original.