Easy Park
Your one stop app for all your parking needs.
Motivation
We strive to solve two key issues that affect our everyday lives. Firstly, we spend so much time looking for parking in urban spaces and it takes away from our daily productivity. Secondly, a disproportionate amount of people own spaces that are underutilized. EasyPark allows our hosts and landowners to offer up their property and land to be used for parking. This allows our hosts to more efficiently utilize their space while allowing drivers to save time and easily locate parking.
Process
We prioritize user-driven insights.
Through interviews with our target users, we were able to get a better picture of their needs and how we could make EasyPark serve them best. We gathered that street parking is scarce in the Bay Area and most of our users spend 10-15 minutes looking for street parking and that parking structures charge an exorbitant fee. Surprisingly, we also talked to several owners/renters and noticed that their parking lots are empty for most of the day.
"Looking for street parking is such a headache. Almost everyday I drive by a house with an empty parking spot." - Person working in Berkeley
"I signed this lease and it included garage space. I don't have a car and am pretty much losing money every month. I tried listing it on Craigslist but the rentals don't seem consistent. If only I could rent it out for short-term parking" - UC Berkeley Student.
Design Through Iteration
We sourced feedback on our designs and carefully implemented changes to turn out sketches into something users will love.
After turning our sketches into a low-fidelity prototype, we had a group of Berkeley Computer Science students perform an independent heuristic evaluation on our initial design. Here are some of the feedback we incorporated into our final prototype:
- We reiterated our design to make the user and hosts experiences unique
- We isolate core functionalities and made them more easily accessible for users
- We redesigned the layout of our pages to make it less error-prone for our users
Final Prototype
Navigate through hundreds of available parking spots nearby. Users are afforded a certain level of customizability. Driving a sedan? Looking for indoor parking? EasyPark accounts for all your parking preferences.
We love to improve and value all feedback. Users and hosts are both allowed to leave reviews, creating a win-win environment for all. The app also offers an in-app messaging system for efficient communication between user and hosts.
We've created a unique experience for our hosts to effectively track the status of their parking lot. With a single click, hosts can change the specifications of their listing and can even change the prices of their parking lot to account for special events happening in the area. The in-app calendar also allows hosts to get a big picture view of their listing.
