Pay Station Interface
Before this project, I recently earned my driver’s license! 🥳
While experiencing my city from this brand new perspective, I found paying for parking to be an incredibly frustrating experience. As a researcher, I took it upon myself and a small team to dissect the problem and come up with a viable solution.
As a result, we designed a paying interface that utilized unconventional strategies to provide effective and equitable paying experiences to a more universal user base.
Role: UX Researcher | Timeframe: 1 month | First Year Master’s Team Project
Problems
We observed 6 paid parking lots and pay stations in Houston, TX, and Boston, MA, and conducted literature review and similar system analysis to identify problems in the current pay stations. Two of our primary findings were:
1. The need to reduce user workload when paying.
2. The need for error recovery and better user support.
Research
Operational analysis
We first identified 4 major functions that needs to be include in the new interface using operational analysis.
Identifiable
Parking Time
Payment Methods
Error Recovery
Similar System Analysis
We then conducted and applied a similar systems analysis to identify user pain points and to explore how the current design tackles the above challenges.
Task flow analysis
To determine the most natural paying behavior a task analysis was conducted.
Findings
According to the prior research, here are some primary findings that guided our design:
Most current systems examined utilize buttons that were confusing and frustrating for users.
It is challenging for users to predict how long they need to park the car due to human’s low ability to correctly predict errors.
Most current systems heavily rely on users’ manual input, which could lead to more errors and decrease the success rate.
People only recall an average of around 3.5 characters from seeing a license plate for a few seconds. After that, the more time that elapses, the more they will forget.
People are quicker at identifying colors and physical features than characters.
Research-based design
Based on the findings, we came up with the following solutions:
Touch Screen & Digital Keyboard
Users can use the digital keyboard to type in car information or edit the input at any time.
Car Stopper & Automatic Timing Device
A car stopper with flap lock and automatic timing is added for every parking space that responds to commands sent by our pay station interface.
Technical Car Identification Method
System pre-documenting car appearance (ie. color) and license plate information using an artificial vision system and monitor system.
Color Identification Method
Identify cars using vehicle colors plus the approximate time they started parking. The interface will present car images according to the user input and allow users to find their car.
Cognitive Walkthrough
A cognitive walkthrough was then conducted to examine the new pay system's usability and identify problems and unclearness in task flow using Spencer's (2000) reduced set of questions.
Impact
Usability testing and User interviews
All of our participants succeed in using the new interface to pay for parking on an average time of 1.8 minutes.
Most participants were satisfied with their experience with the new interface. The automated time counting system and color identification method have received positive feedback on alleviating user frustration.
System usability scale (SUS) analysis
The SUS results indicated that our system was rated as A+ according to the curved grading, M=85.76.
The average score according to the more broadly applied benchmark of SUS (Bangor et al., 2008) shows excellent usability.
