park buggy
your friend to help you park anywhere, anytime.
(my first project!)
Project Type
UI/UX, Digital Design, Wireframe and Prototype
Roles
UI/UX Design, Ideate, Prototype
Duration
2 weeks (mid fidelity design)
+2 weeks (for final design)
Tools
Figma and Adobe Illustrator
Project Overview
Shopify proposed a technical challenge for applicants to complete as a component for their digital design internship submission.
For this year's internship, the digital design problem was a parking meter interface design with capabilities to support parking lot patrons and parking attendants. For the challenge a lo-fi wireframe was needed for the submission. After my application I decided to complete a full prototype design to add to my portfolio.
Design Process
Define ➡️ Ideate ➡️ Design ➡️ Prototype ➡️ Reflection
Define
The problem
New parking meters are being installed throughout your city and a new touchscreen interface needs to be designed to allow drivers to pay for their parking spot and for parking attendants to give tickets.
Each meter attends for every 6 parking spots and will only offer a minimal functioning touchscreen with no internet or bluetooth capabilities.
Product goal
To create a parking meter interface that allows new patrons, current patrons and parking attendants to check and modify the status of their parking.
Design must be easy to use and straight forward to allow users to have a simple and pleasant experience will minimal chance for error and difficulty.
Ideate
Parking buddy logo
From the concept of the design problem I wanted to create an Icon that could be easily recognizable as a means for patrons to find parking meters.
I started off with rough drafts on pen and paper to brainstorm some ideas and designs. Then I finalized the logo using Adobe Illustrator.
Work breakdown structure
From my own personal use of parking meters and various apps (GreenP, Honk Mobile), I created a list of parking meter requirements and placed them into a Work Breakdown Structure. This allowed me to organize and highlight specific features that would be important in the wireframe.
User experience goals
From my work breakdown structure, I came up with a list of goals I would personally want achieved with my experience using this parking meter design:
Patrons should feel confident upon using this machine with no background knowledge from before
Patrons should feel at ease with navigating through the parking meter with spot registration, time selection and payment
Patrons should feel comfortable knowing the system is designed to help people from all backgrounds with accessible and intuitive features
Design
mid fidelity prototype layout
design style guide
Prototype
Through the whole process I was the sole designer and researcher. From many of the parking meters I saw, they don't offer too much in terms of information and sometimes can be difficult for users to navigate if they have visual or physical impairments. In my prototypes, I used Nielsen Norman Group's "Usability Heuristics of Design" principles such as Fitt’s and Hick’s Law.
As parking meters only have minimal functionality for tasks, I opted to create a clean and minimalistic User Interface that only supplied users with the necessities. To help users that may have visual or physical impairments, I included the ability to navigate by using large buttons and voice-to-text/ text-to-voice options. As parking patrons can come from many backgrounds, I chose to keep my design as easy to understand and use as possible.
final prototype layout
start screen
sample selection page
Project Reflection
The most challenging aspect was designing a system that I had little to no experience creating before. As someone that is new into the world of UX design, I struggled to really understand all the components needed to achieve all the goals of the design problem.
I did more research into information design and design principles to gain a better sense on how to engage on this challenge. I was able to use my own previous experiences to create a viable design but I do recognize that I may have my own biases in my thought process.
If I had more time on this project, I would have done user testing to understand their past experiences were and take those into consideration. With user testing, I would also have my prototype tested, to gain feedback and critiques to be able to improve my design.
Overall I really enjoyed this design project as it allowed me to develop my own concept into a mid-fidelity wireframe in such a short amount of time. This project had its own challenges but allowed for me to develop my skills as an aspiring UX Designer and bring out the creativity in me.
Thank you! 🙏
Thanks for taking the time to check out one of the projects I've created! If you have any questions or want to learn more about the design, don't hesitate to connect with me!