🧜🏼 🙋🏿 🤷🏿 UI / UX case: airport parking automation 🥗 🛀🏾 👦

Hi, my name is Stas, I specialize in product design for the transport industry. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, the parking sector is developing slowly, with a delay of several years - in Europe and the USA people are trying to automate any work processes.

This case study describes the process of transforming a tedious workflow parking manager into a simple and comfortable process. Our goal is to preserve the health and nerves of staff, increase team productivity and reduce operating system costs.

Some dry statistics (on the example of the USA)

Until recently, parking and innovation were considered incompatible things. Street parking brings about a third of parking income in the United States, most often controlled by the city authorities. The owners of such parking lots are not eager to introduce any innovations in principle. Yes, and why?

Booking a parking space during a match at Cowboys Stadium, for example, can cost up to $ 100.

Off-street parking, which accounts for about 2/3 of all US parking revenue, is largely owned by private individuals. It turns out that here, first of all, innovations should be applied? But no. Here are a few reasons why private traders are also in no hurry to “break the system”:

Off-street parking is a complex system and territory where there are a large number of players.
Most people only look for a parking space after they reach their destination.
The vast majority of owners rely on parking operators, not on automatic equipment.

But we decided to move the industry off the ground.

What is the challenge for drivers?

Take, for example, you, an ordinary person who sits in quarantine at home. Like many, you most likely do not go anywhere and think what to do with yourself. But a few days ago, every morning you sat in your Tesla Cybertruck, drove the children to school and rushed to the office. How it was?

You have arrived at your favorite job and are looking for a place where you can park and leave your car without fear that it will be taken to a parking lot. But there are no empty seats, and your Cybertruck does not fly. After 5 laps in the quarter, you finally find a place for yourself, but on the way to the workplace you curse the whole system. The same thing will happen tomorrow.

It has been found that drivers around the world spend an average of 20 minutes finding a parking spot.

What about a vacation? Imagine you bought plane tickets, loaded your entire family into a car and rushed to the airport. Before you leave, you most likely leave the keys to your car to the parking manager and fly away to rest. But you don’t even think about what happens to your car further ...

In our article we will talk in detail about the life of parking dispatchers and try to turn their workflow into a less routine.

Meet: this is Vasya and Petya!

Vasya works as a parking manager. He takes, controls and releases cars. Every morning, just like you, he wakes up, goes to work - only on the Hyundai Accent - and wants to do less work for a big salary.

Each change is a huge amount of work. In order to take a car, he needs to meet you, take you to the office, fill out the necessary documents, offer car services (for example, a car wash, charging an electric car, cleaning the passenger compartment, etc.). Vasya must take the keys, inspect the car and deliver it to the parking lot. To do this, he needs to go around the entire parking lot (do you recognize yourself?), Find a free place for your car, remember or write down the floor, section, place number on a leaf. And this is not to mention the return.

At the same time, Petya makes a detour of three floors, ten sections and more than a thousand parking spaces. And also - with a piece of paper, a pencil behind his ear to report to his boss about the state of congestion in the parking lot, any problems or shortcomings that may arise.

Let's try to simplify the life of Vasya and Petya?

When we know what kind of load these guys (parking operators) are experiencing every day, we want to quickly find a solution to their problems.

At Glow, we created the design of the admin panel for parking management. It is adapted for the iPad, as the tablet will make Vasya and Petya more mobile. The product contains all the functions that employees may need - from monitoring reservations and services to checking the status of a parking space and its device.

Where to begin?

In order to automate the work process of these managers, you need to start with the most important thing - with the parking itself.

Each parking lot is a unique facility that can accommodate several floors, dozens of sections and thousands of parking spaces.

How do we transfer parking to electronic form? Yes, and so that Vasya and Petya are well versed in it and understand what to do.

How to transfer 5 floors of parking to a tablet screen?

One hour of the team “brainstorm”, and we made a brilliant decision - to draw a parking scheme, similar to that which is in reality: with the number of floors, sections and places. A few long iterations - and we got the very scheme that the staff knows so well.

For more convenient navigation through sections, small areas (along the edges) were added. These are the so-called Shortcuts - for switching over sections. After another 15 minutes of discussions, for a clearer understanding, the location of the company office was added.

Since the staff quite often switches between places, the ability to quickly view details of a parking space was added. So to speak, without departing from the cash register. This makes it possible to check information about a particular place without switching between pages each time and without opening new tabs.

In the meantime, back to the fact that all parking personnel need to control the workload, the general condition of the entire parking lot and a specific place.

According to the classics of the genre, we created the main page - Dashboard, in which you can track all the main indicators for parking in a few minutes:

number of free places;
number of reserved seats;
the number of upcoming tasks (more about this - a little lower);
table with the latest reserves;
the number of new reserves per day;
;
.

,

Of course, on the Dashboard page it is impossible to track and control all the bookings. For them we have created a separate screen with the ability. sorting by status, type and date. All new reservations are automatically added to the table after the client has booked a place in the public version of the site. However, the manager can fill in the reservation manually.

For more convenient reading of reservation details, colored tags were used to quickly determine the status. Information was also added about the car (make and number).

After a quick search for the desired reservation, staff can open the details and see the details of the transaction. For example: did the customer enter billing information, did he order services for his car, at what stage is this booking located.

One of the most important functions on this page is to assign a parking space. Even before the client arrives at the place, the staff finds a free slot in the parking scheme (we showed it above) and book it.

Time for innovation

After parking the car, a parking sensor comes into play.

This unique technical development saves a lot of man-hours. The sensor is a small device that attaches to the floor in each parking space. Accordingly, after the car is in place, the system automatically understands that it is busy. After that, the reservation is automatically transferred to the Car is Parked stage. That is, the sensor greatly simplifies the process of receiving and issuing cars. And Petya will no longer have to go around the whole territory several times to check the total parking load.

If some kind of malfunction occurs with the sensor, or the charge level approaches a low level, the system automatically sends a notification and issues an alert on the screen.

Service Schedule

The system also has a calendar in which staff can track all future services scheduled for the current day / week / month. Managers see the service that the client has booked and select possible artists from the smart list: he can show artists with the best price, reviews and speed). The calendar will help not to miss the deadlines.

Health matters most

Remember, I said that we focus on maintaining the health of parking employees? So, these are not just words: as I said above, most of the staff uses the iPad for greater mobility. Another important point is that parking is open around the clock, and people who work night shifts will be a little happier: a dark theme will save their eyesight at night.

Do you think I managed to save staff nerves and a little vision?

Thanks :)

UI / UX case: airport parking automation