pulse, a donor app for NamBTS — case file

01 · where it started

they just showed up.

in high school i never knew when NamBTS was coming. one week they were just there, and if i was lucky i heard about it that same week. i gave when i could, more than once, and never got a donor card for it.

when i really got into giving, i went looking for places to give outside of school. sure, there was the main office, but at the time it was just way too far. past that, there wasn’t really anywhere to look. as a young donor, one app that said where the next pop-up would be, and when, would have been all i needed.

i went to one of those pop-ups mainly to find out my blood type. months later, i couldn’t remember it. i couldn’t remember when i last gave, either, so every drive started with the same question: has enough time passed? most people keep track of this. i don’t, and i doubt i’m the only one. so the question behind pulse was a small one: what if your phone just knew? your blood type, when you can give again, and where NamBTS will be next.

02 · the gap

one to three days.

NamBTS has asked namibians to give often for years: “give now. give often.” in 2017, “share life, share often” in 2023, four times a year in 2025. but donors still hear about drives the way i did at school, through press appeals, facebook posts and the radio. i couldn’t find a donor app, a personal reminder or a digital donor card.

in 2025 and early 2026, reserves were reported at one to three days of stock. a healthy reserve is twelve.

sources: bts.com.na · new era · the namibian

03 · the app

four drops a year.

pulse answers the three things i kept getting wrong. the donor card is always in your pocket, blood type and all. the next window and your history answer “has enough time passed?” before you have to ask it. drives and events tell you where NamBTS will be before it gets there, not the week of.

everything sits around the year ring: four segments for the four donations NamBTS asks for. i picked a ring over streaks or points because giving blood isn’t a game, and missing a quarter shouldn’t feel like losing one. it just shows where you are in your year.

04 · the brand

a drop with one eye.

pulse keeps its own look and sits under NamBTS’s name. most blood appeals lean on guilt, and they work, once. i wanted the opposite: warm, plain, and a little bit friendly. so the drop has a face, with four expressions for four states, and the voice rules say “2 of 4 this year” and never “urgent, patients are dying”.

05 · the website

give often, easily.

a landing page for bts.com.na/pulse, for the people who hear about it on the radio and go looking. every number on it carries its source, because a blood service asking for trust should show its working.

i haven’t sent pulse to NamBTS yet. this page is the first step. the pitch suggests a pilot in phases: windhoek apheresis donors first, then every centre, then the mobile drives, measured by how often donors come back. and if it works, nobody at a high school hears about a drive the week it happens again.

pulse is a proposal: nothing here is live, nothing touches NamBTS systems, and every donor in it is sample data.