GetParking (a Cisco-seed funded startup) creates smart parking solutions using computer vision and Internet of Things (IoT). They offer affordable, flexible, seamless parking technology which is compatible with the future of mobility.I designed the entire app ecosystem along with the real-time dashboard which allowed end-to-end parking management that was deployed in 2 smart city projects in India.
Parking businesses in India still use the ledger system to maintain parking records. Human error of handling manual ledgers aside, parking businesses suffer as employees logged daily earnings dishonestly, and few parking lot users left the site without paying for the usage.
India will contribute to 20% of the global growth in parking infrastructure by 2050 with a total of 600% increase from 2017. This application would help businesses become more organized with a more systematic approach.
I was involved in the UX effort to create a parking management solution that would let business owners create a digital record keeping software that would help them monitor the parking lot and the revenue generated better.
The mobile app was designed in a modular way to allow different types of integration and builds to allow flexibility with different parking lot structures.
Some parking lots only catered for cars, some had classifications like cars, fleet and two wheelers and others offered multi-level parking. The IoT devices connections could be integrated in a pick and choose way.
The design challenge was to offer a modular design that could be used in multiple configurations while allowing a user friendly experience.
The 'In activity' allowed the operators to enter vehicles from any screen ensuring a faster workflow.
To compensate for an inaccurate ANPR, we provided with a keyboard and option to select vehicle type to put operators in control.
Operators also get to handle conflicts in the unlikely case it ever arises.
The 'out activity' works the similar way to the 'In activity'
with the exception of choosing vehicle types and handling conflicts.
The flow is linked to the payment collection which allows action such as 'Free of Cost', 'Shop visit discount', 'Overstay charges'.
This screen also connects to the wireless printer, giving the operators an option to print a receipt if the customer demands for it.
To make all the operators actions easy to use, I created a single expandable drawer for important functions.
The in/out buttons were primary actions. Hence, they were always visible.
Secondary actions like clearing out all pending vehicles, creating passes and scanning QR code were set as secondary actions.
In our initial design, I designed one list view with an option to filter and view the list.
We deployed the device at a beta test site, and used qualitative methods to collect user feedback.
Since we were designing for operators with low tech proficiency while optimizing their workflow, the single list view with filters became time consuming.
My initial solution gave users an overview of a daily vehicle tally. To highlight the overnight vehicles I used colors to showcase if the vehicle count didn't tally. This approach still required some mathematical work which made it difficult for the operators.
In our final design, I designed one list view tabs to replace the filters and vehicle tally.
Our number plate recognition only used to take the last 4 digits as a unique identifier. (India follows a strict format for number plates)
Storing the last four digits could lead to several duplicate entries if there were other vehicles with the same last digits.
Secondly, we needed to create a way to identify a passholder from a normal user.
Conflict resolution became a problem when we started providing pass service.
To be more customer centric, we had to ensure that the operator was logging in the correct vehicle. We displayed owner name, entire number plate and pass photo to make it easy to select the right pass.
Operator would be provided with the following options:
In our initial design, The camera screen was always on. This let to a lot of operators taking photos like these when recording data.
Since ANPR was a main feature of the app, we had to ensure the operators use it. However this wasn't the story on ground.
Operators held the phone horizontally while entering vehicles. This led to lack of vehicle photos and a battery drain.
While the final solution was a boom-barrier mounted camera for ANPR, the immediate fix I came up with was a manual mode for camera.
Using the gyroscope, we could detect if the phone is horizontal. Once in that orientation, the camera would be turned off and a graphic would be displayed to inform users about the system state.
The customer app was designed after we had achieved a stable operator app. The implementation was designed to work on a wide variety of smart phones. Hence, we started designing with low-end phones in mind.
For the MVP, the customer app was supposed to provide an easy way to book parking spots in advance.
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I designed the onboarding screens to educate the customers about the app offerings.
The design was kept simple to highlight the core features while staying consistent with the app's branding.
I designed two ways of finding the closest parking spot for two different types of users.
The booking screen was kept simple and easy to use. It allowed users to enter a parking date and time, after which they could generate a QR code for their booking.
The QR code could be scanned by the operator app to confirm the ticket booking.
Here's a demo of the solution
As a bootstrapped startup with limited resources, we greatly appreciated the fact that Animesh could wear two cap, one of a UX/UI designer, and the other of a programmer. He did the design for our core parking management (PMS) app, our logo and letter heads and lots of our collateral.
He also built out our reporting dashboard, wrestling down the complexities of the AngularFire framework, as well as mentoring the junior engineer who took over the code base from him when he left us for his graduate studies.
In between, he got time to prototype computer vision based solutions for vehicle counting and space detection. Animesh is multi talented personalities who was also a good team mate with an affable and approachable presence in office and I wish him the best in his future endeavors
As a designer who was also tasked with designing the front-end of the applications and websites, I was able to build a strong understanding of material design components and interaction paradigms. This served as a strong foundation for understanding feasibility limitations when designing.
Being the only designer on the team, it was upto me to think about the interactions that would exist between the Operator app, Dashboard and configuration of the Iot Devices. It was truly a great learning experience of providing omni-channel experience.
This was the first big project I ever worked on as a UX Designer. While I conducted contextual inquiry, observed participant's behaviour and asked questions, I still lacked the articulation skills and strategic decision making needed to turn them into actionable insights.
I closely worked with the CEO and the manager and engineers for designing the flows and the screens. While for a given problem I was able to design solutions quickly, I failed to question 'why' to understand the root problem. This would be a skill that I learn later during my masters program in HCI.
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