Joe Loera

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The parking locator app for any area during your travels

There are those who enjoy driving to their destinations. For many people, driving the open road and seeing new locations is all part of the adventure. There is, however, no one who enjoys finding parking. ParkIt is an application whose purpose is to make finding available parking simple and stress free while answering any questions the user may have without deciphering confusing and convoluted parking regulations.

Our Goal:

To create an efficient application that will fulfill a users requirements to quickly and easily find parking that suites their preferences and minimizes confusion.

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Project Type

Solo Conceptual Case Study

Role

User Experience Designer

Date

Sep 2022 – Oct 2022

Time Frame

~4 Weeks (Part time)

Research Methods

We will utilize three different research methods to achieve our goal.

Online Surveys

As long as someone drives and has experience with parking, they have important insight we want to know that’ll be vital to understanding the product we’re attempting to create.

Competitor Analysis

We need to know who makes functionality similar to ours so we can understand what positives can be further improved and what negatives can be avoided so our product is the best of the best.

User Interviews

Listening first-hand to people’s experiences and pain points will help us empathize with our users and understand what’s needed to create an efficient problem solving solution to our problem.

Online Surveys

We launched a survey on Google Forms and had 9 responses from users which shed light on the much needed quantitative data that will help us statistically determine a researched plan of action when moving forward. 

of surveyed users felt that the price of parking was the most important factor for finding parking.

of respondents left a potential parking location because they were confused on if they were able to park there or not.

of respondents simply leave and find parking elsewhere if they’re unsure about parking rules, regulations or pricing.

of respondents left a parking spot because they felt unsafe leaving their car there unattended.

of respondents take pictures of their parking spot to remember where they parked.

Online Survey Takeaways
  • Providing info rich descriptors on the parking locations is vital for ease of use and will ensure users aren't frustrated with the entire
  • Many respondents take pictures of their parking location to avoid confusion when finding their car later. Providing the functionality to add pictures will help users familiarize themselves with out app
  • Pricing is the first and most important factor to most respondents when they've found parking. This information must be easy to spot.

Competitive Analysis

There are definitely some standouts with those who’ve created parking apps, but there are definitely cons alongside the pros. Let’s see who does it best:

Strengths

  • Simple, intuitive introduction instruction on how to use app
  • Instruction throughout use of app so you're never confused
  • Very clean UI with pleasing animation
  • When location is tapped, vou can quickly choose to open navigation to destination
  • 2 hit points to change location on top and with magnifying glass on bottom for easy accessibility
  • gray blips are un-bookable blue blips are bookable

Weaknesses

  • location price blips are clunky, clogging map mode
  • little difference showing you
  • No information about parking locations at all except address unless locations are bookable
  • Simple says price and nothing about duration (per hour. etc.)
  • No list view of locations
  • Blips or prices are arav as well as the Google map road, blending together and becoming a wash of unfocused gray

Strengths

  • selectable filters
  • Can sign in with Face ID
  • shows Active, Upcoming, and parking location history

Weaknesses

  • Opens in map view. If no parking nearby, looks baron
  • When searching for zone, confusing number pad comes up with no instruction. Confusing.
  • need to go to “Reserve” tab in order to search a location.
  • No chat online or offline signal so you’re not 100% if your question will be answered in a timely manner
  • chat icon blocks activity tab
  • Activity text scrolls through top bar of iPhone
  • App colors are brash and unattractive

Strengths

  • Price blips are easily easy to make out
  • Green, yellow, and red price blips show cheapest to most expensive

Weaknesses

  • Clunky UI and dated iconography
  • Have to tap enter location, then it goes to another page where you have to tap enter location again
  • Extremely minimal interaction without first allowing location services
  • can earn points for taking pictures, but it doesn’t say what points are used for
  • Shows Garage, Street, and Private parking options, but requires users to look at an icon legend to know what the symbol mean.
  • Shows many results, but a lot of them are parking lots of malls and shopping centers and not necessarily structures or area meant specifically for parking.

Strengths

  • Very professional and inviting imagery and UI
  • Allows you to find parking, find your car, as well as gas
  • shows deals on numerous auto service
  • can save car location that connects to your cars Bluetooth
  • Uses “Spotcoins” to unlock alternate avatars
  • ability to share location
  • can take pictures and assign them to parking signs, parking rate, street views, or other
  • can easily, yet unobtrusively leave star rating on location
  • Can tap “Parking” or “gas” withing the map view for easy view based on current location
  • can access SMS reminders after you save a car location
  • has driving mode and walking mode
  • filters are displayed on top of map and don’t need separate page to cover app

Weaknesses

  • Need an account to use the app at all
  • Need to pay to use app past 7 day trial
  • Confusion stating that “the rules need verification” making user think that they need to take action before they can park there, even if there’s no rules on the street to park.
  • No option to designate start and stop time of parking
  • “Spot Alert” for 15m, 30m, and 1hr but confusion on how it works.

Strengths

  • Can book parking for hourly, monthly, yearly
  • Can save locations
  • Can quickly find parking garages based on location, venue, or airport
  • Shows parking amenities if any as well as hours of operation
  • Info on how to get there
  • Shows images of location
  • Tips on how to minimize any complications
  • Star ranking
  • Walking distance from location user inputs
  • Extensive Filters
  • List mode and map mode
  • Clean, welcoming UI

Weaknesses

  • Need an account to book parking reservations
  • Only shows parking location and not where in that location you parked

Competitive Analysis Takeaways

Iconography is essential

 

These apps can be used by those who are looking for parking fast if they’re in the middle of a busy area. Being able to decipher iconography quickly is essential to a good user experience and should not be taken lightly

Choosing a start time and end time of parking is essential

 

It is universal practice within all parking apps to put a parking start time and end time. This may be difficult if users arrive late or not on the hour (ex. 12:36 as opposed to 12:30 on the dot)

Zones are highly confusing

 

A few apps allowed you to use “zones” which, to someone who doesn’t know the city, can be very confusing and basically useless.

Let's Talk...

Those who park more than likely lived through a horror story about a time where finding parking was a nightmare. We need to hear these stories and learn how they can best be avoided. We had a discussion three people who will help shed light on why parking can be such a nuisance. 

User 1

Location: Los Angeles

 

Apps Used for Parking: Waze to find parking structures

User 2

Location: New York

 

Apps Used for Parking: Google Maps to drop pins

  1. Google maps to drop pins 

User 3

Location: San Francisco

 

Apps Used for Parking: Spot Angels

What was the criteria for how these users were chosen?

Those who live in busy, urban environments usually have the most difficulties finding parking whether it be from over crowded areas or convoluted parking signs. These are the people whose process and pain points we want to understand as parking in these busy areas are the most stressful to park in. 

So tell me...

What do you do to find parking in an unfamiliar area? What do you look for when searching for a parking spot?

  • "I attempt to park within a block of my destination and branch out from there."
  • "Proximity to my destination is what I search for by a large margin."
  • "I prefer street parking over garages."
  • "When I'm close to my destination, I try to glimpse at the street signs first. I never the cars that are parked there. I always obey the signs."
  • "In busy areas, proximity to my destination is most important."
  • "I just use my eyes to find parking. I don't use apps to find parking."
  • "Finding somewhere that looks safe to park is definitely most important. Then I look at how expensive it is to park there second."
  • "I usually look for garages before parking on the street."

Can you recollect when parking was a stressful or complicated? How about a time when you received a parking ticket? What happened?

  • "One side of the road will sometimes have different rules than the other side. I always figure this out when it's too late."
  • "Street signs are usually a confusing mess that take a long time to read."
  • "I parked in an area that had no street signs at all so I thought it was okay to park there. I came back to find a ticket on my windshield."
  • "Street parking signs are sometimes hard to decipher."
  • "Most of the tickets I've gotten are from street sweeping. I had no idea there was street sweeping!"
  • "Trying to read street signs is a nightmare. I usually have to read them multiple times and even then I'm not sure!"
  • "I'll take a picture of the street sign if there's something I need to remember about it."
  • "Street cleaning is the reason I've recieved 90% of my tickets."

Lastly, how do you find your car after you've parked and been away for a while? Do you remember a time when it was a hassle to find your car?

  • "I try to remember landmarks or the address to the best of my ability to find my car."
  • "I remember a time when I parked in a parking garage in a sea of cars and the garage had nothing differentiating the floors. I was lost for a LONG time until I finally found my car."
  • "I will try to remember a cross street where my car is parked. If I'm still not confident, I'll drop a pin on Google Maps to help me remember."
  • "Google Map pins don't delete after I've found my car so my Google Maps currently has a ton of pins so I don't know which pin I need and which ones are old and no longer needed."
  • "I use my memory most of the time to remember where I park."
  • "I would like to use Spot Angels a lot more but there have been times where I want to use it and there's no reception, so the app doesn't work."
  • "I remember a time where I parked in a huge, open area full of cars. It took me ages to find my car."

Here's What We Learned

  • Deciphering parking signs are a confusing hassle
  • Street sweeping the main reason users got ticketed
  • All usually look for garages as a quick way to park if they don’t want to search for street parking
  • Trying to use apps in garages isn’t always possible if there’s no signal

Meet Patrick

Let’s take the insights we’ve discovered during our interviews and condense them into a persona that lays out our interviewees’ habits and pain points to make them easier to digest.

Let's Empathize with Patrick

An empathy map will look into what our users are seeing, thinking, feeling, and doing. In this case, we’ll delve into how Patrick “Streets” Parker reacts when he is going through the process of parking.

What are our users truly going through when parking? What’s their journey like? Let’s hop in the passenger seat with Patrick and figure out the highs and lows of parking his car.

We know what our competition is up to and can understand and empathize with how people think when parking

Now let's organize our information so we can to build our product on a solid foundation

User Flow

Let’s start building! Our user flow will show what our user will have to navigate through to use our product. Let’s start off with the basic functionality our product will showcase: finding parking quickly and efficiently!

Mid-Fi Wireframes

We’re now able to put the research to use by creating some wireframes which will be used to create a working prototype based on our user flow.

Mid-Fi Prototype

Usability Testing 1

We have a MVP! Let’s get it into the hands of users to see where what’s working and what need improvement.

Our Participants

We tested three users. People use a navigation app of some kind to find efficient routes to parking or destinations. These apps show similar patterns that users recognize to minimize confusion and make for a streamlined experience. Let’s observe how our users fare with our product.

Task 1

Find the location of the nearest parking garage to their destination, get directions there, and drop a pin on their parked location once they’ve arrived.

Task 2

Find available street parking between two specified streets near their destination, get directions to that street, and drop a pin on their parked location once they’ve arrived

Our Results

  • Completed task 1 in 1m 38s
    Completed task 2 in 51s
  • “The information on the parking garage was really cool!"

Observations:

  • Wasn’t aware there was more info if you scroll down
  • Used to saving locations for later use and kept tapping “Save Location” (not built yet)
  • Didn’t realize that the “Done” button existed after parking pin was dropped
  • Filters were quick and easy to use
  • Completed Task 1 in 1m 44s
    Completed task 2 in 1m 43s
  • “I look up parking before I leave. Never when I'm driving”

Observations:

  • Confused “Drop A Pin” with “Save Location”
  • Didn’t notice additional information available if you scroll down
  • Filters were small and difficult to hit correctly
  • Enjoyed reading all of the information about the parking which delayed task 2 finish time.
  • Completed task 1 in 1m 41s
    Completed task 2 in 1m 04s
  • “Oh I can scroll down to see more? Nice!”

Observations:

  • Was again unaware that you could scroll down to see more information
  • Took a bit more time to find the correct street in task 2
  • Wasn’t sure what green and what yellow meant at first with finding street parking in task 2.

Usability Test 1 Revisions

Based on the results and observations of our first usability test, we have ideas on what can be improved with our initial design.

  • Add "Scroll Down" on screen so users know that there is more information when you scroll down
  • Think about a way to get rid of the "Done" button and simply guide the user through the experience
  • Increase sizing of filter switches

We've received solid feedback on our product and know how we can improve the experience...

... Now let's improve and create a higher fidelity product for further usability testing

Designing an Accessible User Interface

  • ParkIt’s brand should invoke feelings of professionalism, dependability, and accessibility.
  • The colors of the iconography should replicate the simplicity of street signs
  • Readability and contrast is crucial.

MidFi to HiFi

With a basic design system in place and changes made to our platform based on information from our previous round of usability testing, we focus on turning our lower fidelity concepts into a higher, more defined product and another round of usability testing.

Drag
Drag

High Fidelity Prototype

Armed with the knowledge gained from usability testing and an updated, high fidelity prototype, I had a more refined product that was ready for further testing.

Click to See Hotspots

R – Restart Prototype

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Usability Testing 2

Taking into account what we learned from our first round of testing, we will move to our next round of user testing. We will again time how long each participant takes and deeply discuss their thinking process while navigating the new prototype.

We asked for the same tasks from our first round of usability testing. All three participants were the same from the first round of testing.

Predictions

  • With a “Scroll Down” section added above the fold, I hope users will get more from the app, as well as avoid confusion by seeing the “Done” button.
  • Completed task 1 in 50s
    Completed task 2 in 47s

Observations:

  • Still had a slight delay from tapping “Save Location” instead of “Drop A Pin”
  • Quickly was able to scroll down thanks to the added text
  • “Done” button was no longer a pain point to find once the user knew they could scroll down
  • Completed Task 1 in 1m 12s
    Completed task 2 in 1m

Observations:

  • User selected the filter switches much faster than in the first usability test
  • Took a bit of time to navigate the available street parking

Observations:

  • Noticed you could scroll down for more info quickly
  • Filters were easily selected
  • Street parking view took some time to maneuver since they could zoom in to read the streets

Improvements from First Round Usability Testing 

0 %

Improvement in completion speed

Overall less confusion when navigating platform

What have I learned? What would I have done differently?

  • The smallest, minute change can make a huge difference. In this case, putting the words "Scroll Down" above the fold immensely improved usability and minimized confusion on what to look at.
  • Instructing the user what they need to accomplish through a rough prototype is somewhat of a tight rope walk. You don't want to tell them so little that they get easily confused and you don't want to tell them so much that you don't get usable feedback since you didn't allow the user to do any critical thinking.
  • Get all the information you can out of usability test participants! This isn't a hidden surveillance, one way mirror exam. This is supposed to be a discussion on what the user found convenient and wht pain points they went through.
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Joe Loera

joesdesigning@gmail.com