Parkin

An app focused on improving the parking experience for facebook employees.

Facebook campuses grow at an accelerated rate. With over 35,000 employees, finding parking on a daily basis can seem impossible. As a Facebook employee, I noticed a huge battle for parking due to limited parking availability and resources. In a culture that moves fast, Facebook employees already find a constant struggle with time. This app was created to give Facebook employees back the time lost by providing a quick and efficient system to locate parking, along with an organized and fast way to utilize our valet services.

project type

Personal Project for Hackathon

Design

Visual design, interaction design, product strategy, iconography, and research

Research

To validate if the problem truly exists, I began interviewing Facebook employees to understand their current parking experience. This helped me recognize different people problems caused from the lack of resources. Employees had spent more time than they wanted to find an open parking space or even an open valet, which affected their emotional state and mood for the day. The time spent also overlapped with their work and personal life, leaving them late to meetings while waking up earlier to ensure parking availability.

Current parking scenario

Employees have to drive around multiple campuses to find an open parking space. If parking is not available, they have to drive around to find an open valet. Employees who utilize the valet services have to go through two different processes; drop off and pick up.

the User Journey

I began identifying the user journey by sketching out how a user would utilize an app through their parking experience. This allowed me to gather further ideas, finding opportunities or problems in the flow and usage.

Design process

With a clear objective on problems to solve, I began my design process. In this process, I explored many variations of the user flow, usability, and UI treatments to help build a delightful yet intuitive app. Continuing to ensure that the app is truly solving people problems and providing a great user experience.

Sketching

Through sketching, I was able to quickly draft out ideas, allowing me to focus at a higher level on the user flow, different features, and the information architecture.

Wireframing

Through wire-framing, I was able to understand how content would fit on a screen, how users may portray it, and if components fit together correctly. Allowing me to visualize information overload and usage problems.

The final design

After many iterations, I came to the final design of the Parkin App. I wanted to create a pleasant and simple design to help users achieve their goal. This app provides Facebook employees an efficient way to find parking and utilize valet, helping decrease interference of work and personal life and allowing them to start their day on a more positive note.

Dynamic Buttons

On the home screen there are three buttons placed at the bottom, this allows users to access the buttons easier and quicker. As I was designing this app I had to think through different ways to provide information and important actions to the user without giving them more steps to go through in the process, so I came up with dynamic buttons. The three buttons at the bottom of the home screen change based on the status of the car. Users can access what they need immediately as they open the app.

The valet experience

When there are no parking spaces open users can utilize the valet service right from the app, making the experience quick and easy. Users can select an open valet from the map, see their distance from the valet station, get notified when they arrive along with transparency on wait times and who will be helping them. At the end of the flow the user will get a confirmation to signify the end of the task and assure their car was dropped off.

Schedule Pick Up Time

After users have dropped their car off, their home screen will update based on the status of the car. From the updated home screen users can set up their car pick up time, eliminating the time they would have to spend waiting in line.

Car Pick up

When it comes to pick up time, the user will be notified of when their car is ready. When a user arrives to the valet station, they can pull up their ticket right from the app.