VIPS is a mobile app that communicates real-time parking lot availability to Virginia Tech students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

Virginia Tech has 37,000+ total enrolled students, and 1,000+ full-time instructional faculties. Virginia Tech also has a Top 20 College Football team and welcomes 400,000+ fans at Lane Stadium per season. A good parking experience on the VT campus is important to students, faculty, and visitors. However, there is not an easy-to-use information system that communicates all the information users need. Virginia Tech Parking and Transportation (VTTI) is seeking to retain customers with better service to the end-users.

I came across the project's initial idea when I went to the school library on a football game day at Virginia Tech. What I remembered more than the notes I reviewed that night was the terrible parking experience - some of the lots I usually went to were either closed or became unavailable for my parking permit type due to this special event, and I wasn't aware: Where can I park on campus now?

With my frustration as a user and passion as a UX designer, I reached out to the Virginia Tech Parking and Transportation (VTTI) and teamed up with 3 other teammates. VTTI became our client and worked with us on improving the current system.

We designed a mobile app, VIPS, that serves as an integrated information-gathering system to improve user experience in space finding on VT campus. We conducted 10+ user research (evaluations, interviews, and observations) to discover insights that re-defined product direction and re-prioritized features. A mid-fidelity prototype and usability testing scripts were delivered on time to the client.

Although I already had an initial “personal pain point” as an end-user, I knew in order to reduce my own bias and find the right problem to solve, I needed to hear what the other actual users had to say.

We decided to start by evaluating the current system to help us scope the project and design further user research plans.

Key learnings:

Interviews were conducted with 10 participants who were current students or faculty and staff of Virginia Tech who had experienced parking on campus. In a 30-min moderated interview, they reviewed their behavior, habits, attitude, and experience of their daily commuting and parking around VT campus.

Our team also interviewed and observed 5 parking assistants of VTTI regarding their direct communication with the customers.

In order to further understand users’ thinking processes and behavior, we performed 5 user workplace observations by setting up a simulation scenario and employing Think Aloud protocol. The observations revealed more hidden details of pain points that interviews didn’t tell us.

Key Takeaways from observations

My initial personal pain point is consistent with our research finding, but we definitely learned a lot more and were able to empathize with our users better. These key learnings were then transformed into actionable insights for design.

We did paper wireframing first and built our prototype using Balsamiq.

The pandemic suddenly disrupted our timeline and plans for testing and iterations - we had limited time and couldn’t do testing. We still created usability testing scripts and managed to perform pilot testing with 2 users to make modifications.

Initially we wanted to redesign the current system, i.e. a set of web pages. However, our research shows that users utilize their mobile phones much more often than desktop devices when looking for parking information, especially when they’re in the vehicle/driving.

Instead of having to navigate between multiple web pages or checking emails, VIPS is an integrated system that provides up-to-date information and tailor that for each user. User can also access upcoming parking changes of their saved parking lots fast and easily.

We first thought of the use of technology like Internet of Things (IoT) sensors for precise real-time information of parking space availability. However, considering the limited budget, it was not feasible due to the high cost of the system and sensors. We had to brainstorm alternative solutions to fulfill the user’s needs while considering the client’s constraints.

Our solution is to determine and show average popularity by collecting aggregated data from users over time. Each time VIPS navigates the user to the destined parking lot, it asks the user if they were able to find a parking spot. The feedback collected is analyzed to generate trends on estimated availability to inform other users.

Users can pay with VT campus wallet (Hokie Passport) or credit card if they run out of coins. VIPS also help the user set notifications before metered parking expired so they would never forget again!

Signing in with Virginia Tech account would be convenient to users because VIPs can recognize the permit type, recommend parking lots based on that, and link to the campus wallet to be paid with (Hokie Passport).

However, since finding parking is often urgent, we also provide the option to skip sign-in so that it won’t be an obstacle when the user needs immediate access to the information: they can still manually use filter and search settings to find where they can park.

Visitors can also utilize VIPs to see the parking lot information quickly, or get directions to the visitor center and purchase a parking pass.

Our project’s initial timeline and plans for testing, evaluation and iterations were significantly disrupted by the pandemic, but we still managed to finish it and deliver on time. We talked to our client and mentor to make appropriate modifications on the timeline and deliverable details. Although we couldn’t do testing, we still design the usability testing and managed to perform pilot testing at least. I’m glad that we act on the changes quickly and successfully finished on time

Collaborating with our client, it was both challenging and fun to work with the constraints. I learned to think backwards from the seemingly unfeasible user needs to find the fundamental pain points. We then explored various ideas and found alternative solutions that solve user pain points with limited resources and budget.