ParkNow
Background
In Jersey City, I faced confusion and frustration when conflicting street cleaning signs led to my first parking violation. This experience highlighted a broader issue: the prevalence of confusing signage that affects residents and visitors alike.
Project
I undertook a project for my Designlab certificate to address the systemic shortcomings in urban navigation. Join me as I unravel the complexities of signage ambiguity and advocate for clarity in our city streets."
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UX Research, UX Design, and UI Design
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Creating sketches, wireframes, user flows, personas, high-fidelity mockups, and prototypes. Additionally, conducting data collection, interviews, note-taking, analysis, and development of usability test scripts. This involves recruiting participants and managing consent forms.
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Solo Project
Problem
Urban parking poses significant challenges, as evidenced by conflicting street signs leading to costly parking violations. Limited awareness of parking regulations, the complex landscape of existing parking apps, and the staggering statistics of 6 million parking tickets totaling 440 million dollars issued by NYC in 2016 contribute to the stress and financial burden on drivers. The need for a comprehensive, user-friendly solution is evident in the high percentage of survey participants who have received parking tickets and find interpreting parking signs challenging. The magnitude of the issue highlights the urgency for an innovative approach to alleviate the financial strain and enhance the overall urban parking experience.
Goal
Create an end-to-end app, the ParkNow MVP, assisting users in finding legal parking spaces easily and stress-free while avoiding parking violations.
Solution
A parking app that helps the user find a parking spot and avoid parking violations.
Assumption
Parking is a source of stress for individuals.
Many people need help to interpret and understand the rules stated on parking signs.
There is a demand for an app that can interpret street signs, ensuring users can park safely without receiving tickets.
Competitive Analysis
Direct Competitor: Spotangels
Strengths:
Empower users to discover and reserve parking spots using crowdsourced data.
Comprehensive coverage includes free street parking, metered parking, garage parking, and discounts for garages.
The app is freely accessible, offering users valuable and varied parking information.
Weaknesses:
Despite being advertised as free, SpotAngels introduces a subscription plan, SpotAngels Plus, for $4.99/month or $29.99/year.
Opportunities:
Expand the approach to finding parking beyond crowdsourcing, ensuring usability in cities with lower app usage.
Improve user accessibility to valuable data by exploring alternative methods for identifying parking spots, irrespective of the app's popularity.
Indirect Competitor: Parkmobile
Strengths:
Parkmobile excels as a pay-to-park app, providing users a smooth and efficient payment experience.
Introducing a parking zone system is an innovative feature, streamlining the payment process within the app.
Introducing a parking zone system is an innovative feature, streamlining the payment process within the app.
Weaknesses:
While equipped with features for finding and reserving parking spots, these aspects are not prominently advertised, potentially resulting in a lack of awareness among users.
Opportunities
There is an untapped opportunity for Parkmobile to market additional features, such as navigation to parking spots, beyond the primary pay-to-park functionality.
Increasing awareness of these capabilities can enhance the overall user experience and attract a broader user base.
Survey Summary:
Participants: 19
The survey aims to comprehend the usage patterns of parking apps among participants while identifying any absent features in their current apps. Additionally, it explores whether participants perceive parking sign rules as confusing and tests their knowledge of parking signs.
Resource: ParkNow Survey
Survey Findings:
Parking Sign Interpretation:
44% of participants find parking sign regulations challenging to interpret.
Motivation for Reserved Hourly Parking:
63% of participants express a strong motivation for reserved hourly parking.
Need for Parking Sign Interpretation Feature:
73% of participants desire a feature that helps interpret parking signs.
Parking Ticket Incidence:
73% of participants have received at least one parking ticket in the past 3 years.
Stress Reduction as a Motivation:
16% of participants state that their primary motivation for using the parking app is to reduce stress.
Affinity Map
Persona
Meet Erica, a recent graduate from Ohio State with a BFA in Ballet. Erica has embarked on her professional journey as a ballet dancer at Philadanco Ballet, leading her to relocate to a Philadelphia suburb. Hailing from a small town in Ohio with minimal downtown parking signs, Erica finds herself challenged by the intricacies of parking regulations in the city. With practices four times a week, she commutes for an hour into the city and spends an additional 45 minutes searching for parking. Unfortunately, Erica has already received two parking tickets, one for street cleaning and another for "No Standing." Frustrated by the complex parking rules, Erica needs a solution to navigate and understand the parking landscape in her new urban environment efficiently.
Goals:
I wish for a parking app where I can secure a spot ahead of time before heading into the city. It would make my commute much smoother.
I really need a parking app that can help me make sense of those confusing parking signs. Getting those tickets is stressing me out, and I just want to park without worrying about breaking any rules.
Frustations:
The daily ordeal of spending 45 minutes searching for a parking spot near the studio is a significant hassle, adding unnecessary stress to my routine.
Receiving a parking ticket almost every month, with each one costing around $50, is becoming a frustrating financial strain. I need a solution to avoid these ongoing expenses and simplify my parking experience.
Age: 24
Education: BFA Ballet
Job Title: Ballet Dancer
Income: 40K
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Family: Mother & Sister
Sketches
Wireframes
Round # 1
Round # 2
High Fidelity
Round # 1
Round # 2
Usability Test:
Participants: 5
Objective: Evaluate the ease of making a parking reservation and completing the checkout process. Assess the user's ability to capture a picture of parking signs within the app.
Tasks:
Find and reserve a parking spot, then proceed to checkout.
Use the parking sign feature and determine if the user can park legally.
Results:
The dropper and car icon lack visibility.
The destination dropper is challenging to perceive.
Clarity issues with start and end times for parking reservations.
Need for more adequate visibility of prices.
Lack of notification prompting camera access.
“Unfortunately, when I lived in San Diego, I probably received six parking tickets yearly.”
Research Impact on MVP:
These design decisions aim to optimize the user experience on the map, addressing visibility concerns, improving functionality, and providing clearer information for users navigating the parking app.
Design Decision # 1
Enhanced Dropper Visibility
Change: Removal of the car icon.
Impact: Improved clarity and visibility of the dropper on the map.
Visual Enhancement: Addition of color to the dropper for heightened visibility.
Design Decision # 2
Start Time and Duration Interface
Change: Revision of the interface, incorporating a time and date wheel.
Impact: Increased user-friendliness for setting parking reservation start times and durations.
Design Decision # 3
Camera Access Prompt:
Change: Introduction of a pop-up message requesting camera access.
Impact: Enhanced user guidance, ensuring users are notified and prompted to utilize the camera feature effectively.
Next Steps
User-Listed Parking Spots:
Integrate a feature allowing users to list their personal parking spots for rent, fostering a collaborative community approach to parking availability.
Pay for Meter Parking:
Implement a functionality enabling users to conveniently pay for metered parking directly through the app, streamlining the payment process.
EV Car Charging Reservations:
Introduce a reservation system for users to park and charge their electric vehicles simultaneously, promoting eco-friendly practices and addressing the growing need for EV infrastructure.
Reflections on What I Would Do Differently:
After considering various strategies to gain insights into parking regulations and enforcement, I realize the value of engaging with parking police officers and conducting guerrilla recruiting on NYC and Jersey City streets. This approach would offer unparalleled opportunities to gather firsthand perspectives from enforcement professionals and individuals directly affected by parking regulations.
By speaking with parking enforcement officers, I could gain valuable insights into their daily procedures, challenges, and perspectives on the effectiveness of current parking policies. This direct interaction would provide a deeper understanding of parking enforcement's intricacies and highlight potential improvement areas.
Additionally, guerrilla recruiting on the streets would allow me to engage with individuals who have recently interacted with parking regulations, such as those who have received parking tickets. These conversations would offer immediate feedback on their experiences and frustrations, providing valuable context for refining parking policies and enforcement practices.
In hindsight, I believe this approach would provide rich and authentic insights that could inform more effective solutions for ParkNow in urban areas.