Passport Parking was established in 2022 by Passport Labs, Inc. The primary purpose of this app is to allow users to pay for parking easily and efficiently. The app allows users to input the license plate and street parking zone to make the payment. This provides convenience because it eliminates the need to dig for coins and find a meter to park at. The parking zone amount is already programmed into the app, which allows users to select freely on the amount of time they want to pay for. In addition, user can extend their session and add payment directly from the app instead of having to walk back to add payment into a meter.
Before diving into creating the elements and functionalities of the application, I conducted a competitive analysis of what the market is offering. Below are 4 different applications that offer the service of convenience in finding a parking spot prior to arrival. Upon completing the research of options available, there are characteristics that I envisioned as opportunities for my application.
The personas created are focused on people from dense metropolitan cities who will highly likely encounter parking inconveniences often or daily. In both Los Angeles and San Francisco, finding parking in some areas can be overly stressful. Let's take a look into Tina and Chris' lives to visualize the significant role parking plays in their lives.
As we look further, in both cases for Tina and Chris, they eventually would have found their parking. But, the concern for parking does not stop when they've made payment on the meter or the app. As they enjoy their activities, time passes and uh oh - their parking time is up and they now need to pay again! They can input the parking zone from the History, but what if they want to simply search the street to confirm the zone? Unfortunately, they simply can't.
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I started with the main screens to ideate for the screens that will follow. The homepage remained as is since the new feature would not appear yet. When creating a new session, users will then encounter the new feature. Next, the zone map is what will follow from the path of searching for the zone through the address. With the zone search, as a familiarity with other designs, there are filters for user to narrow down their search. In the sketch, the filters will pop-up as a separate page for a direct focus. These are the main screens to be explored in strengthening the new added feature.
The 5 participants taking part of the study are within LA County who own a car. This includes full-time and part-time workers and students. We can gauge the effectiveness and relevance of the feature to the direct intended audience. Participants each completed the study in the comfort of their home.
We’re adding a new feature in the app to help people search for the zone and location to find a parking spot associated with Passport Parking near them. Before launching, we need to figure out if searching for the parking zone is easy for users to do. We’d like to understand what specific challenges or needs users might face in the search process and how to resolve issues identified.
Figure out if users can intuitively know where to navigate to search for a zone within the app.
After conducting the study with the newly added feature, participants expressed confusion and inability to navigate to where they intended
In creating for an existing app, the challenges I faced were both the limitations in being creative and consistency. For one, I felt restricted in how I wanted the components to appear. I had to be extra mindful of any additional colors to avoid clashing with the existing brand design. In addition, when adding pre-designed icons, since I can't adjust the colors according to the color palette, it took additional time to search and decide on one that will fit the brand visuals. Throughout the process, I have learned to be flexible and work within my limitations.
It is by default that when I thought of parking, it is with gas vehicles. From the provisional personas created, I was reminded that as more electric vehicles cars are being produced, it is important to be inclusive of the market. Because of this, it was pertinent to not lose sight of my target audiences and provide them the resources of their respective needs.
