Case study · Public health
VAPA Guide, snakebite app
Snakebite training that works fully offline.
- Client
- VAPA
- Service
- Design and development
- Sector
- Public health
- Constraint
- Fully offline
At a glance
Built for where it is needed
No connectivity assumed, because most snakebite cases happen where there is none.
Laymen, paramedics and doctors, each needing a different depth of the same knowledge.
VAPA Guide is the leading reference on venomous and poisonous animals.
Reference material for the moment, and a game for building the knowledge before it.
The brief
The emergency happens where the network does not reach
India carries a large share of the world's snakebite deaths, and the geography explains most of it. Bites happen in fields, at night, far from a hospital, and the first person to respond is usually not medically trained. What they do in the next hour matters more than anything that happens later.
Which rules out the obvious product. An app that needs a connection to identify a snake or recall a protocol is an app that fails at the exact moment it is opened. Offline is not a feature here, it is the requirement.
A reference that needs a signal is a reference that will not be there.
The build
Everything on the device
Working fully offline shapes every decision underneath. The species data, the imagery, the protocols and the game all ship on the device, which means content size and update strategy become primary design problems rather than deployment details.
It also raises the stakes on the content itself. An online product can correct a mistake quietly; an offline one is trusted in an emergency exactly as it was installed. VAPA Guide being the world's leading knowledge base on venomous and poisonous animals is what makes that acceptable — the authority is the source, and the software's job is not to get in its way.
Wow Labz is designing and developing both the toolkit and the game. The project is ongoing.
Two products
Learn before, refer during
The toolkit
Reference material on venomous and poisonous animals — identification by appearance and behaviour, defensive behaviour, and the effects of envenoming — available with no connection at all.
The training game
A game that builds the knowledge before it is needed, aimed at the same three audiences, because reference material only helps someone who already knows roughly what they are looking at.
Three depths of knowledge
A layman needs identification and what not to do. A paramedic needs stabilisation and transport. A doctor needs envenoming specifics. One knowledge base, three ways in.
Stack
What it was built with
Questions
VAPA Guide, answered
What is VAPA Guide?
The world's leading knowledge base on venomous and poisonous animals. Wow Labz is designing and developing a toolkit and a game on top of it that train laymen, paramedics and doctors in India to handle snakebite cases.
Why does it have to work offline?
Because that is where snakebite cases happen. Bites occur in fields, often at night, far from hospitals and frequently with no connectivity, so a reference that needs a signal fails at the moment it is opened.
Who is it for?
Three audiences at different depths: laymen who need identification and immediate do-nots, paramedics who need stabilisation and transport, and doctors who need envenoming specifics.
Is it finished?
No. Wow Labz is currently designing and developing both the toolkit and the game.
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