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.
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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.
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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
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
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.
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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.
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6.4
Navigating to destination.
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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..
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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.
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6.8
Tic tac toe illustration.
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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.