EasyPark
The case
Make it easy for car drivers to understand the parking rules of the place where you have parked your car.
The client
EasyPark provides a digital service for making parking easier regarding parking fees and locating parking lots.
My role
UX designer
The team
Amin Amini
Emma Bergström
Felicia Holmlund
Michael Bengtsson
Patryk Chodowiec
Petter Byrstedt
Sabina Kasper
Time
3 weeks
Design process
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ANALYSIS
Research
The project started with a self-experienced problem of having difficulty understanding complex parking signs. The team decided to take the issue at hand and started to investigate whether the problem is shared with a broader scale of car drivers in Sweden.
The research entailed market research emphasizing people's experience of car parking and possible problems and outcomes of their experience. The analysis revealed that the problem was broader than we thought. Therefore, we decided to conduct one-to-one interviews with car drivers from different locations in Sweden to perceive their attitudes toward car parking.
ANALYSIS
Defining the issues
With help of the thematic analysis of the interviews, we gained a better understanding of people’s experience of car parking both before, during, and after a parking sequence. Categories of behaviors were discovered that later were defined as behavior patterns.
Personas
The research had now reached a point where the designers had an idea of the users. To gain a perspective, similar to the users, we decided to construct three personas based on the research with a focus on their behavior, problems, needs, and ambition.
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The qualitative personas in Swedish
Translating needs into solutions
With qualitative personas and market analysis, the design team identified needs and a potential market to enter. However, we had to visualize what the product could be.
We started by looking at potential solutions based on the personas' needs by conducting a session on Point-of-view (POV) and How-might-we (HMW). This session entailed defining, more specifically, how we might solve the user needs. At this point, we had another creative session where the whole design team brainstormed ideas, more or less extensive, based on the HMW that was conducted in the previous session. The ideas were later categorized and prioritized based on criteria of being possible to fulfill and that they solved many of the valuable problems we had discovered.
One example of the POV + HMW matrix in Swedish
With all the ideas in front of us, we created a Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) to ensure that the product was positioned alongside the users' values and needs. The VPC helped us to understand what functions we should focus on to match the market and the users' needs. For instance, we saw the opportunity of offering a scanning service of parking signs, and easily accessible information of the parking rules of the parking lot where I am currently located at.
Translating solutions into business
With the VPC at hand, we now wanted to understand how this product could be successfully introduced to the market. Therefore, we carried out a Business Model Canvas (BMC) to gain insights into the customer segment, which communication channels to use, what the revenue and cost streams could potentially look like, and much more. Through the BMC, we saw that the potential of this product was most suitable in an already established service. Based on the previous market research, the product should be considered to be part of the parking service app - EasyPark.
Business Model Canvas in Swedish
DESIGN
From idea to design
In order to create a product that covers the user needs, the design team introduced the design process by creating wireframes of the features that had been suggested. By putting our ideas on paper, we made it easier for all of our team mated to understand what product we were about to develop. The more frames that were outlined, the more we could see a potential flowchart and potential drawbacks. To understand how all of the features and frames were connected, we decided to construct a Flowchart. The Flowchart resulted in a better understanding of the features that we were about to be created, and how the features occur to EasyPark’s services today. The Flowchart was later to become dynamic during the whole project with several iterations conducted by a discussion regarding a row of what-if situations (e.g. What if the parking sign is covered with snow?). The advantage of the interactions resulted in engaging discussions that later turned into new designs.
To validate our wireframes, we invited our classmates to iterate with the design and let them share their thoughts on the lo-fi prototypes. The feedback was noted and the wireframes were ready to become prototypes.
Flowchart in Swedish
Regardless of how often the educators sign in and out of the platform, it should be easy for them to proceed with previous work. As you can see at the top of the frame, the educators get direct access to recently visited classes and groups without searching for them in the system. As a result, the work process on the platform becomes more time-efficient than it used to be.
As the students' levels can differ within one class, it increases the difficulty for the educator to adapt the education that is optimal for everyone. Therefore, with an upgrade of the platform, the educator gets the opportunity to notice students who have similar needs for support and pair them into groups. This opportunity encourages educators to provide educational material that is adapted to the needs within the group.
