A usual problem in big cities is to find where to park and how much to pay for it. We can use map apps, but that does not make sure to quality and availability, that is why I try to find a way to solve this problem. Our brief was to conceptualize how a smartwatch app could solve a common problem in the big cities, Parko is a hassle-free mobile parking solution that allows students to easily locate open parking spots, pay parking fees and update parking time.
Finding a parking lot during the business hours is a nightmare for anyone with a vehicle who does not own a parking pass or leave early enough to find open street parking. Hunting for parking spots usually equates to being late to the desired work that the user is trying to go.
My role was to design the overall user experience and the user interface for the product; Wearables are one of the fast-growing gadgets in today’s market so we went ahead and planned to make the application available for the wearables exclusively. Along with designing the application, I proceed further and kept myself closely aligned to the developer in order to avoid challenges during the development.
To start the designing for the project I started with the user research and then proceeded further and made the user personas, after creating the personas it was time to make the user flow and make the task flow analysis for the user. Through brainstorming and hand drawings, I gained a sense of how to visually display design features and aspects I wanted to incorporate in the app.
I focused on the main Watch Kit face, notifications, and other necessities the user would need to interact with the watch to complete the task of parking. After making the sketches, it was time to make the high fidelity designs for the application.
Soon after making the high fidelity design, it was time for us to make the overall prototype and we started testing the application. We iterated before coming to the final design but soon after landing at the final design, we felt it all worth that change.
I learned a lot through this project and I walked away with knowledge about the Apple design system, mobile app design, and how simple discovery can kick-start problem-solving for the real world.
