Overview Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Problem- Parking can suck See ex. on the right How do we make an easy to use application to solve the problem? Contextual Inquiry Experience Sampling method Tasks and Sketches

Problem - Solution Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall % of traffic congestion is from difficulties in parking Frustrating No advance information Application that can inform drivers about parking availibility Take guessing out of the equation Go straight to your spot

Contextual Inquiry- What we Did Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall Contextual Interviews in the Master-Apprentice model Alis, Windy and Justin- All were UW students Differing levels of driving experience Tried Parking in different neighborhoods of Seattle

CI - What We Learned Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Customers rely on guessing If they have been to a location before, they try to apply previous knowledge Many preferences for parking E.g. is curbside better than garage parking?

ESM – What We Did Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall customers over Sunday and Monday From 9am-12pm ask a parking survey every 3 hours If they had parked, ask detailed questions. If not, ask again in 3 hours One Microsoft commuter and another student

ESM- What We Learned Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Usually, people can find parking relatively easily Parking takes 1-10 minutes We were asking the wrong questions. Too many Yes/No questions and not enough “Why’s” A good study of parking habits would require far more data

Task Analysis Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Easy- Mark current location using GPS as a saved parking location Medium- Determine overall parking availability for an area Hard- Find parking near a destination entered into a map What?Why? Based on drivers’ current strategies for finding parking. Also a way to find a lost car. Some drivers have a choice as to whether they should take public transit or drive Finding available parking is useless if the driver does not know how to get there

Design Sketches Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Start Screen VisualizationNavigation Visualization

Design Sketches Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Above: Visualization of checking parking garage vacancy Right: Visualization of parking search

Summary Jonathan McKay |CSE 440 Fall 2008 Parking can definitely be problematic Form the CI we learned that people have numerous and differing desires for parking From the ESM we learned tat parking is not always a disaster People often need help with simple tasks, not complex ones

Questions?