This is a personal project that explores my approach to solving parking issues faced by employees in co-working spaces.
PARC
Reimagining corporate space optimisation to reduce parking-related stress for new employees
Transportation
Mobile App
Rapid Prototyping
Project Details
Solo project - Design challenge
Aug 13 - Aug 18, 2023
Activities
UX research, Storyboarding
Journey mapping
Wireframing, Rapid prototyping
OVERVIEW
PARC is a smart parking management application that allows employees to reserve and manage parking spots in real-time, optimizing space usage and reducing parking-related stress.
In 2023, I sought to practice visual design skills on a project that is not related to healthcare, and I took a challenge of solving corporate parking issues, where new employees struggle to find a space for their vehicles.
DESIGN PROCESS
While working full-time, I reserved 3 hours daily for 5 days to this personal assignment (not forget that a public holiday really helped!).
Discovery
Problem Definition
Ideation
Design
DISCOVERY
As a person who never used a vehicle in corporate space, I wanted understand the problem in a realistic scenario.
Thus, I conducted 2 Telephonic interviews with ex-colleagues, who I believe as potential users, and then documented their experiences in a storyboard.
These insights helped me to define a proto-persona and a customer journey map, highlighting a newly joined employee's parking experience.
Daily 15 mins struggle to find suitable spot
2
Lack of proper demarkation
Penalties/fine due to parking at a reserved area
Unavailability of parking space leads to off-site parking
Lengthy process of reimbursement for off-site parking
The absence of an efficient on-site parking solution is causing daily challenges for new employees, leading to difficulties in locating available spaces, incurring unintentional penalties, and confusion over reserved spots.
HYPOTHESIS STATEMENT
Design a mobile app that offers real-time parking spot availability, reservations, issue reporting, and penalty prevention.
Focusing on the mobile solution, I did a competitor analysis of 4 popular android and iOS applications, grasping a good understanding of how competitors are solving the problem.
IDEATION
The ideation activities included — HMW questions, sketching and brainstorming to define user flows and outlining a holistic view of parking management eco-system.
Considering the remaining time (3 days), I focused only on a particular flow of user reserving a spot and raising an issue regarding the parking space.
The final designs include few of the key solutions such as —
DESIGN
Simple navigation and a clear view of available spots for reservation
Reserve a spot for week/month
Raise any issues regarding parking
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I found this assignment quite challenging, and as a person who primarily uses public transport, I became aware of various parking issues. Additionally, in my opinion, sketching is the best method for generating ideas rapidly.
This project also taught me the importance of time bounded task management, boosting productivity, all while managing my office work.
Moreover, I certainly believe that with more time, the designs can be improved tremendously.