Urgences

Summary

Urgences helps a user quickly reach the information, contacts and tools that matter in an emergency. It is a long-lived product, maintained and developed over time, now in its sixth generation.

Context

At around 19, while studying, I witnessed someone collapse. Several people nearby hesitated over which number to call. That confusion became the starting point for Urgences.

The idea was simple: make the right contacts immediately accessible, without asking users to understand emergency-service organisation beforehand.

Problem

Under stress, the user must get the essentials in seconds, without friction or information overload.

Role

A cross-functional role: product, design, development, App Store publishing, localisation, monetisation, analytics and maintenance.

Constraints

Expected reliability, a legacy codebase to evolve without regressions, privacy requirements and the constraints of the Apple ecosystem.

Product decisions

I organised the product around four simple needs: call, find, prepare and get guidance. The home screen can lead to a country-appropriate call, a short guidance flow, nearby places or information prepared in advance.

First-aid guidance, medical records, maps, widgets and Apple Watch features only matter if they make the essentials easier to reach. They must never distract from the priority action.

UX

Fewer actions to reach the essentials, stronger legibility, and design for use under stress.

Technology

iOS (Swift with an Objective-C heritage), mapping and points of interest, widgets, Apple Watch, and a server-side data pipeline. Technical detail will link to the dedicated documentation.

Monetisation

Essential features remain free to access: emergency calls, useful numbers, first-aid guidance, human medical records and nearby healthcare locations. Urgences+ adds preparation tools without ever taking the place of a vital action.

This model funds the product's continued development while keeping essential access simple and immediate.

Data and results

Since launch, Urgences has passed 1.2 million downloads and now reaches around 7,000 monthly active users.

In the 2010 iTunes Rewind, Urgences appeared first in the Medicine category's free-app ranking. It still regularly appears in the App Store Top 10.

More than anything, these results show that an independent product can remain useful when it is maintained and improved over time.

Challenges

Evolving a legacy codebase while keeping it stable, and balancing feature richness against simplicity of use.

Lessons

A product's longevity owes as much to maintenance discipline as to new features.

Next steps

Continuing the redesign, consolidating data and internationalisation.