Finding Parking Faster with Tic-Tac-Toe

Duomi is a personal assistant that helps you find parking, wherever you go in the city. This project is an entry for the Mobilize Mobility Contest 2023. We worked alongside four mentors from Renault, pitched the concept in three competition rounds, and were fortunate to win the competition. 3D model of the Duo car was provided by Mobilize.

User research

Survey design

Concept development

UX & UI design

Protopie

Venture pitch

Value proposition

Links

Simon Rapisarda

Enrichetta Maria Borsano

Timeline

8 weeks

Promoting Trust in Autonomous Vehicles

Duomi is a personal assistant that helps you find parking, wherever you go in the city. This project is an entry for the Mobilize Mobility Contest 2023. We worked alongside four mentors from Renault, pitched the concept in three competition rounds, and were fortunate to win the competition. 3D model of the Duo car was provided by Mobilize.

User research

Survey design

Concept development

UX & UI design

Protopie

Venture pitch

Value proposition

Links

Simon Rapisarda

Enrichetta Maria Borsano

Timeline

8 weeks

Finding Parking Faster with Tic-Tac-Toe

Duomi is a personal assistant that helps you find parking, wherever you go in the city. This project is an entry for the Mobilize Mobility Contest 2023. We worked alongside four mentors from Renault, pitched the concept in three competition rounds, and were fortunate to win the competition. 3D model of the Duo car was provided by Mobilize.

User research

Survey design

Concept development

UX & UI design

Protopie

Venture pitch

Value proposition

Links

Simon Rapisarda

Enrichetta Maria Borsano

Timeline

8 weeks

Highlights

Find parking faster with Duo’s small footprint and empty parking prediction model. Through a parking-spot-scale, community-powered game of tic tac toe.

1.1

Onboarding.

Video

1.2

Destination choice & navigation.

Video

1.4

Navigation journey.

Image

1.5

App components.

Image

Context

Made for getting around the city

The Mobilize Duo is a compact, electric, connected & affordable micro-car that's perfect for city driving. Its tiny footprint makes it super easy to maneuver and park in tight spots. Available on a subscription model, it’s designed to reach wide audiences, including teenagers over 14 (in France).

The goal: improve experience with the Duo

The brief was open - improve the experience people have while using Duo. This was an opportunity for us to uncover a genuine painpoint.

Discover

How do people choose their preferred mode of city transport?

We interviewed six people that live and commute within a city. Research wasn’t limited to car users, but rather to the general sentiment around city commuting. This way, we could eventually make the DUO more enticing for everyone.

Talk me through your last trip/commute in the city.

Is there anything that frustrated you about your last trip?

How do you try to mitigate these frustrations?

What are the aspects you consider when you decided on this commute?

What would your ideal commute look like?

Have you considered using ot trying any other modes of transport?

‘Mainly I try to optimise for time. Just want to get from A to B as fast as possible.’

Interview insights

Commute patterns vary greatly depending on the city. Reliability of public transport, cycling infrastructure & micromobility/car sharing service availability all influence the decision.

Car is considered the most comfortable, but the cost of purchasing and operating a car does not justify the added comfort as it doesn’t improve the commute time.

Commute time is the main factor when choosing a means of transport. Car brings about uncertainty in the day-to-day due to traffic & time spent looking for parking.

Commute time is the main factor when choosing a means of transport. Car brings about uncertainty in the day-to-day due to traffic & time spent looking for parking.

Car sharing is seen as a means of transport for leisure or one-off circumstances, not for every day commutes

The four pillars of a city commute

Comfort, safety, cost, time

Numbers to back it up

Interviews showed that there are four factors that influence commute choice: safety, comfort, cost and time. We developed a survey to gather quantitative data to pinpoint a pain-point.

3.1

Survey snapshot.

Image

Survey insights

Time efficiency is the priority when commuting for both work and leisure. 51% picked as the top choice, ranked 1.42 out of 4

People in smaller cities chose a car because of time efficiency, people in large cities (over 1 million) chose it because of comfort

65% of car drivers state that parking and traffic are the most frustrating aspects of their journey

13% of respondents have an always available parking space available to them both at home and at work.

Define

Busy, organised, efficient


The Mobilize Duo is a compact, electric, connected & affordable micro-car that's perfect for city driving. Its tiny footprint makes it super easy to maneuver and park in tight spots. Available on a subscription model, it’s designed to reach wide audiences, including teenagers over 14 (in France).

The Mobilize Duo is a compact, electric, connected & affordable micro-car that's perfect for city driving. Its tiny footprint makes it super easy to maneuver and park in tight spots. Available on a subscription model, it’s designed to reach wide audiences, including teenagers over 14 (in France).

Costanza

38 years old

urban professinal

medium to high income

car and public transport

Costanza commutes to her office in the city centre two to thee times a week. She’s time-poor: has a busy lifestyle and values her time highly. She’s tech-Savvy: comfortable with technology and often prefers digital solutions for her needs. As an early adopter of technology, she’s keen to try new products on her own accord.

Needs

  • time efficiency

  • flexibility

  • convenience: seeks products and services that offer convenience

  • enjoys image of a trend setter, willing to take risks

Frustrations

  • wasted time behind the wheel

  • uncomfortable stampede in the metro

  • having to account for commute time variation (traffic, strikes, parking, maintenance delays)

Wants

  • quick, comfortable, stress free commute

  • ability to plan her schedule without consideration of commute time

  • youthful, forward thinking and environmentally conscious image

4.1

Costanza - urban professional.

Persona

Tim

25 years old

young professinal

low income

micromobility

Tim just started his first job as an engineering consultant five months ago. This requires him to commute to the office, sometimes six times in a week. He’s open-minded, continuously learning and adapting to the new. He’s also tech-savvy, which is basically a requirement on the job for him.

Needs

  • affordable mobility

  • time efficiency

  • flexibility (limited engagement)

  • clear pricing for easy budgeting

Frustrations

  • public transport can’t be depended on

  • shared scooter subscription fee going up

  • thousands of micromobility providers - choice paralysis

  • having to look for scooters

Wants

  • quick commute

  • discounts and perks

  • trailblazer, challenge status quo

4.2

Tim - young professional.

Persona

Time is the priority

It’s important to be able to estimate journey duration, so that people can plan ahead and stay organised.

Pinpointing the painpont

We chose personas that do not use a car to commute. We imagined their journey with a car to see where the painpoints would be.

Costanza’s trip to lunch with a new client


Picking our battles

Narrowing the scope on parking

Traffic vs parking

Traffic and parking search create uncertainty that requires setting buffers and ultimately wasting time. Planning around traffic (with predictors and route planners) is already possible, we chose a problem that we can tackle: parking.

What’s out there

When compared to other means of city transport, Duo ticks three out of the four commute pillars. Due to traffic and parking however, it lacks in compared to micromobility.

4.3

The urban commute landscape.

Graph

Long parking searches are bad for

  • city

  • users

  • environment

In keeping with Mobilize mission, we wanted to improve a problem that impacts users, environment and the wider society alike. Long parking searches are a detriment for all of the above.

Detriments of a long parking search

15 minutes per day wasted on average.

Creates a time variance - difficult to predict and plan journeys.

5 additional km per day.

Around 30% of all traffic is cruising for parking during the busiest time of the day, slowing down other vehicles.

Generates additional emissions and wastes energy.

City centres - pavement side parking most prevalent

Finding parking is a bigger issue. Only 13% of respondents from cities over 1million have an always available parking space available to them both at home and at work.

Mid to longer Journeys - over 2km - people choose a car 80% of the time.

Setting the focus: Centres of large cities

Duo is expected to be used for inner city commutes. Based on research, we narrowed down to users in central city areas.

Opportunity statement

How might we cut down on parking search time to shorten trip duration and alleviate uncertainty?

Develop

Requirements to build upon

Digital

Keep the solution within an app, make it flexible and easy to scale.

On-brand

Visually align with Mobilize brand.

Playful

Match Duo’s fun character.

Parking prediction

On-street parking availability prediction services such as Parknav provide reasonably accurate estimates of where empty spots are in the city.

6.1

Parking spot predictor result.

Image

6.2

Three Duos in one spot.

Image

Compact footprint

Three Duos can fit into one regular parking space.

User’s phone is used as an instrument cluster, making it easy to keep updated.

People expect their digital in-car experience to be as good as what they get from their mobile devices.

The concept

Navigate to an empty spot, park, help other Duos.

Step 1

Map out

First, we use Paknav’s model to know where’s high probability of empty parking spots

6.3

Availabilty of parking spots.

Image

6.4

Navigating to destination.

Image

Step 2

Navigate

User inputs their destination, we navigate them to a street with high probability of a free spot, close to their destination.

Step 3

Claim

Once there, we use the compact size of the Duo, and let the driver park. We ask them to share information about the parking spot* - whether there’s room for more Duos.

6.5

Conquering a spot.

Render

6.6

Location of parked Duos that we can still navigate to..

Image

Step 4

Benefit

We use the fact that we know the anonymised parking location and information about this specific parking spot to navigate other Duos to this spot (if free).

How to park?

We wanted to find a simple way to explain how to place a single Duo in parking space so that it helps other Duo users.

How did you park?

We also want to prompt users to share how they parked, so that we know whether there is space for other Duos in the parking spot.

6.7

Gamification illustration.

Image

6.8

Tic tac toe illustration.

Image

Tic tac toe strategies

Turns out that trying to park three cars in a single spot so that other cars cannot get in requires the same strategy as winning a tic tac toe game.

Two scenarios

Kerbside parking is prevalent in city centres. The places are either continuous or vertically divided.

Continuous

6.9

Empty spot on a continuous kerb.

Render

Divided

6.10

Empty spot on a divided kerb.

Render

One gameplan for each

Step 1

Champion

If the spaces are not vertically divided, park on the side.

Step 2

Champion

Lock in the whole space for a third Duo by parking on the opposite side.

Step 3

Game.

Last step - park in the middle.

Step 1

Conquered

When arriving at an empty parking spot, park in the middle so that other cars cant get in.

Step 2

Done

Other two Duos can now park on either side.

Meet Duomi

People expect to have natural with their cars in the future. We decided to present the functionality through a personal assistant. Duomi - assistant that saves you time, by helping find parking in the city.

Concept Validation

What do people think?

Before jumping into development, we sent out a survey to validate whether our concept idea would be interesting to people. We shared the survey with people that we knew aligned with our target, based on previous survey. See full results here.

Accurately estimating commute time and finding empty parking spots are the most desired functions.

Accurately estimating commute time and finding empty parking spots are the most desired functions.

Accurately estimating commute time and finding empty parking spots are the most desired functions.

75% of respondents would use the assistant on a weekly basis.

Accurately estimating commute time and finding empty parking spots are the most desired functions.

The UX

Efficient & clear

Simple and uncluttered layout

Standard mobile layout, easy to scale for different screen sizes.

Familiarity vs one-handed use

In the first iteration of the interface, I tried to optimise for visibility and consistency with the search bar on top. Testing with people showed that the layout suggested that scrolling will be required when results show up, even though the user will likely type into the search bar until the desired result is on top.

In the second iteration, the search bar moves to the top of the screen on tap, not sacrificing too much vertical space.

Second layout was chosen, as it required less hand shifting from keyboard to the top of the screen - making the process faster.

8.1

Search bar on top.

Low-fi prototype.

Familiar, good visibility.

Interaction spread both on top and bottom of the screen

Implies ‘browsing through results’ rather than quick search and go asdbhjab asdbas asdasd

8.2

Search bar on bottom overlay.

Low-fi prototype

Good reachability, one handed use possible

Interaction concentrated on the bottom area of the sceen

Less vertical space

Overlays and underlays to suggest context

8.3

Interaction flow.

Low-fi prototype

Visual design & design system

8.4

Button component.

Figma screen

Responsive overlay cards

8.5

Overlay card layout.

Figma screen

Final designs

Snappy and straight to the point

Onboarding

Tic
Tac
Toe

Journey
with
Duomi

Takeaways

Takeaways from the project

Constraints promote creativity

Looking at constraints from a different point of view got me to research and explore areas that ultimately led to the solution.

Optimising for familiarity alone can be uninspired

It’s necessary to tap into existing mental models, with added uniqueness.

Keep it visual

Visual representation of any information makes explanations exponentially faster.

Using resources at hand

It’s important to know from early on, what resources are available and how to utilise them.

© 2024 Tomáš Kňaze. Made with 🍑 in Turin, Italy. Last updated on August 1st, 2024.

© 2024 Tomáš Kňaze. Made with 🍑 in Turin, Italy. Last updated on August 1st, 2024.