Brand
Park Mobile
Industry
Transportation
Application
Mobile
Year
2020
Overview
After volunteering to take part in usability testing, I suddenly found a lot of interest in a company that I had never heard of until that day. Soon after my initial encounter, I attended a General Assembly event where I had the opportunity to listen to Jeff Perkins discuss his thoughts on innovation and ParkMobile as a whole. Left inspired, I wanted to find my own ways in which I could improve their brand identity while more importantly, further push and develop their mobile experience. I initially gave myself a shorter deadline to meet the scope of this personal project but have since revisited my first designs and is what is now being presented.
Research
Ever ran late to an important meeting and struggled to find parking? Or had to park miles away from an event because it's the closest parking spot you could find?... Me too. Finding parking is hard no matter which city you live in. For this project, I allowed myself to anticipate and foresee where I believe ParkMobile's mobile app to be heading towards within a given scope. Assessing user-centred problems, I dove right in to solve issues that might arise from general parking interactions, all the way up to the everyday commuter.
The Perfect Spot
Motorists spend an average of 17 hours a year searching for spots on streets, in lots, or in garages. The hunt adds up to an estimated $345 per driver in wasted time, fuel, and emissions, according to the analysis by INRIX.
Overpaying — caused by drivers' inability to estimate how long they need to park or forking over extra at a garage to avoid the risk of getting a parking ticket — costs Americans more than $20 billion a year or $97 per driver, the report estimated.
Overpaying — caused by drivers' inability to estimate how long they need to park or forking over extra at a garage to avoid the risk of getting a parking ticket — costs Americans more than $20 billion a year or $97 per driver, the report estimated.
Competitors
Reading through scores of varied app reviews, I found that most of Parkmobile's and its competitor users typically enjoyed the connivance of what their apps offered...reserved parking, previewing available parking, booking events, etc. Unfortunately, these perks were often countered with lower app rating that came about from bugs within their systems. User complaints commonly manifested from varying pain points involving wasted time and money.
User flow
Navigating through my redesigns should feel fairly familiar to both current ParkMobile users and those who have Apple's latest IOS. To make changes, improving the interface and user experience meant providing essential information to be readily available rather than interrupt the user's journey with unnecessary clicks or routes. Whereas ParkMobile currently saturates its map with both events and available parking zones making it uneasy, I restructured this journey to be more accessible allowing the flow to be less complex and more direct than ParkMobile's current design while searching for and booking events.
Initial designs
With ParkMobile being such a young company I took this opportunity to try to bend and break roles. I found ParkMobile app overall aesthetic to contradict what I had been exposed to within both their office space and on company website. For these initial designs I shifted gears and approached this personal project more experimentally than my normal . Driving in itself is such an interactive relationship between man and machine. I wanted my redesign for ParkMobile to be nothing short of just that.
Persona
"The ParkMobile app is a great way to make sure I am rarely late to where I need to be, with its reserved parking. I commute to the downtown/midtown Atlanta area most days for work and occasionally for recreational events. The app itself functions alright but now and then I do find myself behind on time during my commute due to train delay or bus transfers, to the point where I wish that I should have just driven into work or found another route. "
Commutes
Daily by car
Education
Some college
Career
Full time chef
Other
Church community leader
likes
Spontaneity
Dislikes
Bad service
Personality
Caring, dependable
Social
Instagram, Snapchat
Final Iterations
These final iterations are a product of revisiting my initial designs of what worked while letting go of what didn't. As some of my early designs were led by a desire to innovate, the need to create a more familiar interface and experience helped me refine my designs during these later stages. Having hit my given scope and the deadline I had given myself, this meant taking what I had accumulated up to that point and make necessary changes to further align with Apple's design guidelines and implementing the correction needed to better suit ParkMobile own identity and interest.
The Daily Commute
An article written by The Washington Post states, "The average American has added about two minutes to their one-way commute since 2009 with typical commuter now spending 20 more minutes a week commuting than they did a decade ago. Over the course of a year, it works out to about 17 additional hours commuting." It went on to state that, "longer commutes are associated with higher rates of divorce... Traffic congestion alone costs Americans $166 billion a year due to lost time and increased fuel costs."
Next steps
Redesigning ParkMobile's mobile app was overall a great experience, Initially lead by inspiring encounters, I had the opportunity to later refine, elevating my work to meet certain standards. Going forward with this personal project I would love to gain more insight into autonomous vehicles. My focus would be finding ways in which ParkMobile's app would work in-sync with such technology as I am positive that this is in store next, for one of Atlanta's fastest-growing companies.
Next Project
