PARK 'N FIND

Reducing the cognitive load from the parking problem

*** This case study does not directly address the problem of inadequate parking spots in congested urban environment ***

PROBLEM

There is a lot of anxiety amongst people around the parking issue in an urban street parking setting. There is a digital gap in the process of finding the right parking spot in the cities for residents who do not have a dedicated parking spot for their vehicles. In the busy urban life, there is a lack of digital touchpoint, during parking, that provides relevant information and relieves the user from the cognitive load. This directly leads towards violation of parking laws and thus getting parking tickets.

In a street parking scenario, the parking spot location differs every time a person has to park, and that adds to the cognitive load that the user has to overcome.

The problem can be detailed in three categories:

Problem 1 - Is the parking spot really for me?

The first issue is the delay in finding a location for parking and errors in judgment due to the information not available handy (lack of digital touchpoints).  The drivers spend a good amount of time verifying if they can actually park at the spot that they have just found. They try to find the parking sign to seek information. The signs are not readily accessible - either sparsely spread out and often time not readily visible (hidden between trees, for example). Drivers sometimes park the vehicle at the found space and then go and check the signs and verify that they have parked at the right location. If they have not, they need to find another parking spot on a different street. If the driver is in a rush, he/she might not verify the information and end up parking at the wrong parking spot. 

"I am really bad at it. I park first and then check for the sign later"

Problem 2 - When am I supposed to move my car?

Urban street parking requires that the vehicles be moved in time for the street cleaning to take place. The cognitive load on the user to remember the time when the car is to be moved in response to the street cleaning schedule to not get a parking ticket is substantial, given the inconvenient schedule of street cleaning and the busy urban life. This cognitive load sometimes leads to missing the schedule to move the vehicle, and thus a parking ticket is incurred by the user.

Problem 3 - Where did I park my car the last time?

Even if the effort to remember the time to change the parking location of the vehicle is overcome, there is another load of remembering the location of the parked car. A lot of time is spent in this process.  

APPROACH

Interviews:

Eleven of San Francisco residents were interviewed. The interviewees had at least one vehicle and did not have a dedicated parking spot at or near their residence. These interviewees have lived in their neighborhood for an average three years and to some extent, know the street cleaning schedule for the streets they generally park at.

Even when a pattern has been established in parking and the schedules, there have been, on average, 3-4 times a year when the interviewees have missed the parking ritual.

Drivers have incurred a cost of, on average, $210 per year in parking violations and spent ~10 mins every time they have to look for a parking spot on the street.

Competitive Analysis:

None of the parking apps take into consideration the street cleaning schedule, which is the key feature of this project. The ones that show a color-coded street map do not show the correct information. The UI elements aren't user-friendly. Having a small text size on the UI causes a shift in focus for the driver in an already stressful driving scenario. 

Ingenious techniques that drivers have used to reduce cognitive load:

• Drawing a map of the neighborhood on the fridge and using magnets to add the car's location to find it later.
• Set the alarm to remind oneself of the time to move the car.
• Use a GPS Device that is set in the car by Metromile.
• Go around the block and use the 'Beep Technique' to hear the noise from the locking and unlocking of the car and get a sense of the direction from which the sound is coming from.
• Taking a picture of the car and its surroundings at its new location to have a pictorial memory.
• Sharing the information with the spouse/partner so that the cognitive load is distributed and the chances of recalling increase.
• Relying on a good memory.

"When you are looking for parking your car, you don't really think long-term"

Journey Map:

IDEATION

Any ideation should be able to provide the solution for the three distinct problems - Finding a suitable parking spot, a reminder of when the car is to be moved, and showing the location of the vehicle. Wherever possible, the solution should provide a very simple sequence. 

"It has to be so so simple"

The solution for finding a right parking spot relies on color-coding the side of the streets with respect to their proximity to street cleaning schedule - green color indicating that the street cleaning is a few days ahead and it is safe to park the car for a long time (about 3-4 days). Blue color indicating that the street cleaning is a few hours away, and it might be safe to park the car but might have to monitor the schedule carefully. The red color indicates that street cleaning is either ongoing or is scheduled very soon, telling the user to not park there at that particular instant, especially since there might be a lot of open spots on that side of the street at that time. 

The city has an online database of the street cleaning schedules, and the API can be accessed for this purpose.

The color display, which is the first level of information, should be enough for the user to make the decision. It is essential to provide as much information as possible on the main screen to prevent the user from having more interactions with their phone to gather the necessary information, especially since they are still behind the wheels and possible on a busy street. If the users decide to seek more information on the details of the timings, they can tap the colors and get that information. The notification serves as a solution for the reminder to move the car's location. Generally pushed well ahead of time, depending on the user's current location, this notification leads to screens that provide the user with the direction to the car. 

VISUAL DESIGN

Tools used: Sketch, Flinto, Photoshop.