Campus long term and event parking with a twist
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BuyMySpot, an app for long-term & event parking on college campuses, was in need of several major updates. The app had seen some success as a peer-to-peer marketplace for parking, however, several improvements to the app needed to be made to attract new audiences to the platform.
During busy leasing periods, landlords often struggle with inefficient and time-consuming communication with tenants regarding parking, and often use inefficient and failable methods such as google sheets to organize information. This results in not being able to sell all of their parking spots and a lot of time spent on managing parking which could be spent on other important tasks. There is a need for a user-friendly solution that streamlines communication and organization for landlords, making it easy to manage and sell parking spots, and reducing the time spent on managing parking.
Design a user experience solution that allows large landlords and lot owners to effectively manage and sell multiple parking spots on the BuyMySpot platform, including customized views for lease history, messaging capabilities, and support for various spot types.
Competitive Analysis was done in two stages. First our team analyzed Spacer and Clutch, two direct competitors of our platform. These are a few things that we noted as things to consider when making our platform.
Next, our team analyzed LineLeap, a line-skip app for venues, and Float, a peer-to-peer boat renting app. Although these are not direct competitors of our platform, we wanted to determine what features we liked from these apps that may be beneficial when when building ours. These apps would be considered "analogous" competitors as they provide inspiration for our product.
Since BuyMySpot is a two-way platform, a survey was also conducted to understand and empathize with customers of parking spots that would be using the platform.
To gather more information and determine pain-points of potential users, the team interviewed 20 potential users from our design's target domain. Each member interviewed 10 landlords for roughly 10-15 minutes and took very detailed notes, which were qualitatively analyzed. The 3 main takeaways were:
“I've been dealing with parking all week as we've been getting a lot of phone calls from people wondering if we have spots available for them to rent out.”
Interviewee, 51, Female
"We have two different types of spots available in our lot: covered spots which go for $190 / month and uncovered spots which go for $170 / month"
Parking Lot Owner, 64, Male
“We right now just keep all of the information on parking availability on a Google Sheet... There are often a few spots that go unsold by the time the semester starts.”
Interviewee, 30, Female
“The amount of websites out there is a bit overwhelming - I wish it was all in one place, especially because oftentimes I'm looking for something very specific.”
Interviewee, 55, Male
"Sometimes NextDoor and Facebook posts will pop up with cool things to do - people post about things going on and that generates interest."
Interviewee, 55, Female
“The problem with a lot of these other websites is that they are full of ads and I need to fill out a bunch of forms to get to the information that I want.”
Interviewee, 55, Male
Next, I created 5 personas of the different types of landlords and lot owners that were observed based on the qualitative interview data. These personas reflect the different attitudes that these potential users have towards their current methods of parking management and their willingness to use a platform like BuyMySpot.
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To further explore and understand BuyMySpot's target users, I created several storyboards to complement the personas that I developed. My goal when creating these storyboards was to bring realistic detail to these personas and allow me to connect and learn about the user’s activities, lifestyle, frustrations, and goals. This will improve the development of BuyMySpot app by providing a deeper understanding of BuyMySpot's target users.
To address pain-points of the new audiences (landlords and large lot owners), our team contrived several key decisions that would guide the enhancement of BuyMySpot.
This feature allows buyers and sellers of parking spots to communicate directly within the platform, making it easy to arrange details of the transaction and answer any questions they may have regarding pricing, location, etc.
Landlords and lot owners need to be able to easily manage and sell parking spots of different types at multiple properties, with customizable options like format of payment (monthly or upfront), minimum lease ranges, and custom lease agreements.
This feature provides a clear overview of all leases and transactions on the platform, allowing landlords to easily sort and filter data to view the information they need, such as current and past leases, payment history, and more.
In order to reduce information overload on the app, two types of accounts were created: "travelers"- those who are exploring their communities and creating travel plans, and "hosts" - those who are hosting events in their communities.
Users are often overwhelmed by vast amounts of information on other travel websites, and would benefit from a tool that automatically suggests plans based on their preferences. A "travel personality quiz" was designed for creating plans.
Our interviewees mentioned that they often are looking to do things with friends or family but struggle to make plans together. Our app allows for creation of groups where users can easily create plans together by syncing their travel quiz results.
A user flow diagram was proposed, showcasing how users will be interacting with the new BuyMySpot webapp.
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The founder explained that the idea for FinVisual came from the frustration of seeing investors and traders resort to screenshotting SEC filings and sharing them on social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit. While these platforms can be helpful for sharing ideas and discussing investments, there are several paint points faced on these platforms.
Many individual investors lack access to the same financial data that professional traders and analysts have. This can make it difficult for them to make informed investment decisions and stay on top of market trends.
Even if investors do have access to financial data, finding information they need can be time-consuming. This can be challenging for casual investors who don't have time or expertise to sift through complex financial reports.
Once investors have gathered financial data, analyzing it and making sense of it can be a challenge. Without the right tools , investors may struggle to identify trends or make accurate predictions about the market.
A low-fidelity wireframe was then created to establish the foundation for the project's visual direction.
Building upon the foundation established by the paper wireframes, I took the designs digital and created digital wireframes, laying out the majority of the BuyMySpot web-app design.
With the goal of targeting the app towards college students, a playful blue (#007bff) was chosen for the primary color and the Poppins font was thoughtfully selected to infuse a sense of fun and energy into the digital prototypes.
Finalizing the design, I incorporated branding elements, implemented autolayout, added icons, and created design systems in Figma to ensure ease of editing in the future for the BuyMySpot app.
