Ithaca Parking Pay Station Redesign

Parking Pay Station Redesign

For my Human Factors and Inclusive Design course, I worked within a diverse team to execute the UX research and design for Downtown Ithaca’s parking pay station interface design.

OBJECTIVE To create a more seamless, user-friendly parking pay station.

DURATION 3.5 months

TYPE Industrial Product and UX/UI Design

The Team

My team was composed of a variety of backgrounds (UX design, graphic design, engineering, and research), enabling a holistic design approach. We each made it a priority to communicate, which required routine meetings and setting incremental, mutual goals.

We approached this project with a focus on human factors and ergonomics informed by research and usability studies.

My role was rooted in planning, conducting, and synthesizing user research as well as iterating digital design solutions.

Problem Statement & Context

We were tasked with redesigning the Ithaca parking pay station experience with the Downtown Ithaca Alliance as our client. The DIA is a not-for-profit responsible for downtown Ithaca operations and transportation through strategic planning. The current on-street parking interface hinders the downtown Ithaca experience — users constantly complain about using the interface and some avoid it altogether.

What makes the on-street parking stations so bad to begin with?

Our team was challenged to consider not only the client’s needs, but the user’s needs.

Client needs

To better understand the needs of our client, our team held a Q&A session with the DIA Executive Director and Operations Director. The major takeaway was that the organization prioritized inclusivity and usability in the redesign. Additionally, because the DIA has a limited annual budget with many other projects to address, it was requested that the redesign would take advantage of the current equipment.

User needs

It was also crucial to understand the user’s current interactions through a collection of user research methods. Our solution aims to address user pain points for a more seamless user experience through a human-centered design approach. In order to solve the pressing usability issues observed, our team considered both digital and physical interactions for the interface redesign.

Our Goal

We developed our goal with a focus on the users as we felt that this would render the most impact. This also put the DIA’s key request for inclusivity and accessibility at the forefront of our design.

Testing the Current Interface

We approached our goal by initiating cognitive walkthroughs and semi-structured contextual interviews in downtown Ithaca with real parking pay station users (socially distanced of course). Before our trip downtown, the team developed a set of interview questions that would help us gain a better understanding of the shortcomings of the pay stations. Our questions were focused on user hesitations, points of confusion, and expectations upon use.

In order to ensure a representative group of users, we targeted five participants ranging from ages 22 to 75. The usability testing consisted of silently observing participants and then following up with questions to specifically identify the user pain points.

The team also conducted a literature review of similar public interface designs (i.e. ATMs, food kiosks, self-check-outs, etc.). This helped us understand current solutions that addressed a wide range of abilities and disabilities as well as the demand for quick, intuitive interfaces.

Key Findings

Based on our research, we found several key insights that informed the persona development that would guide our redesign proposal.

We recognized two human factors scopes within which we could best redesign the parking stations:

1. Physical Ergonomics. Almost immediately, most if not all users were faced with anthropometric obstacles, evident in the constant squinting and hunching to adjust to the screen. We also wanted to address the necessity of maintaining cleanliness, which is valued now more than ever given Covid-19 circumstances.

2. Cognitive Ergonomics. Users persistently struggled with memory-related interactions, such as remembering their license plate number or to take their receipt. Also, the screen prompts were fragmented and unclear, making users hesitant to proceed. The parking machines present a lot of information at once, and this overwhelmed users.

Team Turning Point

After uncovering the user problems that needed to be addressed, we realized that there was tension between the feasibility of the design and the impact. If we focused solely on feasibility in order to best meet the DIA’s preference to utilize the current parking devices, impact would be sacrificed.

Thus, the team decided to focus on impact more than feasibility in order to effectively address our main goal dedicated to the user experience. Above all else, we wanted to make sure user needs were successfully met.

High Fidelity Prototyping

We condensed all of the necessary functionality to one screen for intuitive, convenient navigation. By utilizing a touch screen with straight-forward prompts that incrementally guide the user, we aimed to mend the current usability disconnect between screen and keypad. The interface wireframes and prototype were developed in Figma. Two other teammates and I first created low-fidelity wireframes that applied psychological design principles and human factors, which was then developed into the high-fidelity prototype to be user tested.

low fidelity Wireframing

high fidelity prototyping

Interface Usability Testing

To test the success of our new parking interface, we created a 3D prototype made up of a cardboard unit that housed an iPad with our screen prompts. These sessions focused on testing the digital design as Covid-19 implications limited our access to campus resources.

As a team, we developed a set of relevant tasks for the users to complete, which included (1) purchasing a ticket with card, and (2) adding time to a ticket with cash.

Due to Covid-19 constraints, we were only able to include two users in our testing. However, we made sure to use a range of demographics to gain a holistic understanding of our user experiences: one older Cornell faculty member and one full-time student.

We achieved our main goal of making the overall process more intuitive and efficient.

“It was nice that I didn’t have too many options, which helped to make it faster.”

We failed to communicate what users should do with their parking ticket.

“I would probably keep [the parking ticket] just in case.”

We needed to make users aware the health and safety initiatives that our prototype considered.

It would be helpful “If there were graphics that said UV-C light to sanitize screen…”

We needed to be more inclusive of the older group of users.

“You might want to consider increasing the scale of the writing… I’m getting older so sometimes I can’t see.”

The Physical Form

The team conducted a brainstorm session to determine the most ergonomic physical form. Based on the team’s sketched design ideas, one team member modeled and rendered the interface in Rhino. This render was handed off to me for a Photoshop makeover, putting our design into physical context.

Although the team was unable to create the final 3D prototype of the physical form due to Covid restraints, we collaborated virtually to create final renders that would realistically convey our design.

The final form prioritizes a range of disabilities with ADA compliant dimensions. It also addresses sanitary concerns observed during user interviews. We also made specific design decisions, like slot placement and an adjustable screen height, to mitigate any physical strain on the user.

user scenario

To better communicate the intended journey for a user interacting with our design, we created the following scenario.

demo video

Check out this demo video for a better understanding of our process and the interface design.

Impact & Looking Back

Our team proposed this redesign in hopes to eliminate user confusion, promote inclusivity, and enhance the downtown Ithaca experience altogether.

The redesign proposal was well-received by the DIA. In particular, the organization appreciated the screen prompts supporting simple and incremental steps as well as our attention to making the physical form widely accessible.

I would have liked to further develop the physical form to conduct another round of usability testing of both the digital experience paired with the 3D design.

Additionally, since our proposition was not particularly feasible for the DIA’s budget, I would love to explore breaking our design down into smaller, more easily implemented elements to be added to the current pay stations. Still, our solution was developed with a focus on the user and we did not feel it was appropriate to compromise an effective, user-centric design for feasibility purposes.

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