One Tap to Get Home Safely

Imagine your mum has gone for her usual walk to the shops, but today the streets look different. She cannot quite remember which turning to take. Her heart rate rises. She feels confused and alone. In that moment, she does not need a map with multiple options or a complicated interface. She needs one clear action: "Take Me Home."

OurTurn's Take Me Home feature is exactly that — a large, unmissable button on the Help screen of OurTurn: My Day, one tap away from the "I Need Help" button on her clock face or the Help tab beside My Day. When she taps it, a maps app opens with walking directions home. No decisions, no typing an address. Just a clear path back to familiar surroundings.

It follows a simple principle of dementia-friendly design: the most useful tools are the ones that need the fewest steps and the fewest decisions.

The Take Me Home button sits in its own "Get Home Safely" section of the Help screen. The button is large, high-contrast and labelled with clear, simple text. When tapped, it opens Google Maps with walking directions to home — or Apple Maps on an iPhone without Google Maps.

The navigation runs in the maps app itself, which means your loved one benefits from familiar, reliable directions without needing to understand how to use them. They simply follow the route.

You add the home address in Settings, on the web or in the OurTurn Caregiver app, and the button appears once it is set. You can change it at any time — for example if your loved one is staying with a sibling for a week.

When your loved one taps Take Me Home, OurTurn quietly lets the family know. This is not an alarm — it is a gentle heads-up that they may need some extra support right now.

If your loved one shares their location, the alert includes where their phone was at that moment, so you can decide what to do: keep an eye on the map, call them, or go to help. Without location sharing, the alert still arrives — the tap itself is what matters.

Everyone in your Family Circle who uses the OurTurn Caregiver app and receives safety alerts gets a notification on their phone, and the alert shows on the Location and Help pages, so whoever is closest or most available can respond. On a locked phone, the notification is neutral and names no one unless you choose to show details.

Every element of the Take Me Home feature was designed with accessibility in mind. All text on your loved one's screens is at least 20 pixels, with high-contrast colours and large tap targets that are easy to hit even with unsteady hands. The surrounding screen is uncluttered and calm, using the same warm, gentle design language as the rest of OurTurn: My Day.

We deliberately open directions in a maps app rather than building navigation into OurTurn. This keeps OurTurn: My Day simple and lightweight, avoids the confusion of an unfamiliar map, and gives your loved one up-to-date walking directions.

Without an internet connection, the alert waits on the phone and reaches the family's app when the connection returns. The Help screen still shows the family's emergency contacts with big Call buttons, and the emergency number for your country.