You'll see it on some simplified screens: a big red SOS button. It looks reassuring, and that's exactly the problem. We thought hard about it and deliberately didn't build one — and the reasoning is worth sharing, because it's the same honesty that runs through **what My World can't do**.
The problem with a red SOS button
"SOS" is an internationally recognised distress signal. Put it on a screen and it makes a promise: press this, and rescue comes. But a button on a home computer can't summon an ambulance — at best it rings a family member, who may be asleep, driving, or two hundred miles away. A button that looks like it calls the emergency services but actually calls your daughter is worse than no button at all, because someone in real trouble might press it and wait for help that was never coming.
We won't put a promise on the screen that the software can't keep.
What ours does instead
Our Help button is honest about what it is: a way to reach one named person, shown plainly.
- It wears that person's photo and name — "Ask Sarah" — so nobody can mistake it for a general alarm. Where no contact is set up, it's a plain, calm icon, never a distress symbol.
- Pressing it starts a ten-second countdown with Call now and No, I'm alright — so a trembling hand that brushed it hasn't made a call by accident, and cancelling leaves no trace.
- The moment it's confirmed, everyone in the contacts is emailed — before the call is even dialled — so if nobody picks up, nobody is left not knowing.
- The screen itself states the limit: this calls Sarah on this computer; it does not call 999 (or 112, across Europe).
Where the real line is
This is the honest bit, and the point of the whole piece: My World is not a medical or safety device. If a parent needs to be able to summon emergency help, that job belongs to a proper personal alarm or a care arrangement — and it should stay exactly where it is. Our Help button is for "I'd like to see a face" or "I'm a bit stuck", never "I've fallen and need an ambulance".
Drawing that line costs us a reassuring-looking red button. We think a promise you can keep is worth more than a button that looks good in a screenshot — the same reasoning behind helping from far away, where we're equally clear about what an email can and can't do.