SpotHero Touchless Parking
A Cross-Platform Response to COVID-19 Safety Concerns
2020 · Project Lead, Product Design
Project Summary
SpotHero is a parking reservation service that lets you find, reserve and prepay for parking on you phone or computer. When COVID-19 hit, I led the research and design on new product functionality addressing safety concerns, including our "touchless parking" initiative. I also help project-manage the effort, coordinating work, communication and deadlines across our iOS, Android, Web, Marketing and PR teams.
The Challenge
When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, SpotHero's initial response was limited. Although the company did send customers an email to help deal with the wave of cancellations, there were no visible changes to its products or policies.
Early into lockdown the SpotHero executive team also watched competitors like Reef launch touchless parking initiatives, and momentum started to build internally for one of our own. By calling out parking facilities with contactless parking redemption methods (eg. where you scan a QR to enter and exit a parking garage) the SpotHero team believed we could (1) make COVID-conscious customers feel safer booking parking, and (2) more effectively attract new users who were replacing public transit with driving.
The exec team ran a quick database query of SpotHero's parking facilities, and using a quick definition of 'contactless' estimated that about 50% of SpotHero's parking facilities had touchless redemption. I was given this table and a loose set of goals for the project and tasked with designing 'contactless parking.'
Research Planning
In a way this project started a little bit backwards; "contactless parking" was a semi-specified solution to a problem that wasn't well-understood: COVID-19 parking concerns. I suspected contactless parking could have user value since it was cropping up in industries like food delivery and retail (Chipotle, Walmart, Uber) but we didn't have evidence.
My approach for discovery work on this project was to zoom out and consider "contactless parking" as one potential solution to address broader user concerns around COVID-19 and using SpotHero's parking service during a pandemic.
I'll add that this project had the challenge of being high-visibility, and behind schedule. It started about 5 weeks into lockdown, and while no deadline was given to me, the executive team wanted to "get something out there" as soon as possible to time the launch with city/state reopening timetables. Take your time; everyone's watching 😅
Competitive Analysis: COVID-19
Before diving into user research, I spent a day trying to understand how companies in comparable industries were responding to COVID-19. I hoped to form hypotheses around common safety concerns by studying the product changes I could see.
I collected and took screenshots of COVID-specific messaging and product functionality at 12 comparable companies in travel, transportation and food delivery, and was able to pull out 5 or so patterns in how companies were handling COVID-19 (seen below).
The big takeaway after looking at other companies was that a central element of most COVID-19 responses was communication not new product functionality, and SpotHero had nothing in the way of visible messaging for COVID-19. I shared this document with our marketing and PR teams to start build the case for more communication, and figured at a minimum we should as organization craft a blog post and link to it from our homepage. More on that later.
Discovery Research: User Concerns
After studying how other companies were responding to COVID-19, I shifted focus to our users. I wanted to better understand COVID-19 parking safety concerns, and changes in commuting habits. This would help me to not only validate or disprove the value of a contactless parking initiative, but also to understand new expectations and behaviors.
I settled on a survey for two reasons: (1) we had a tight deadline and I wanted fast, representative feedback from SpotHero users, and (2) a survey could include scoring, which would allow me to rank and compare different concerns. This would help me answer address trickier questions around prioritization, like "are users relatively more concerned about interacting with attendants or touching buttons/surfaces"?
We sent the survey to 1,000 SpotHero customers who had parked with us in the past 90 days, and separately posted the survey to LinkedIn to sanity-check our customers' responses and grow our response pool. We were able to gather 120 responses from SpotHero users, and 50+ friends & family participants.
Key Survey Findings
✦ In general, driving & parking was already seen as relatively safe
✦ Users had concern about valet parking
✦ Support for touch-free parking was strong
The survey helped not only validate the desire for contactless or touchless parking (to my surprise, it actually ranked #1 in things operators could do), but it also confirmed our earlier suspicions about valet parking being seen as risky, and helped eliminate facility type (lots, garages) as a safety variable we had to consider. Given that 93% of participants rated driving and parking as safe or very safe, the survey also indicated to me that we probably didn't need to make major changes to our product.
As a nice aside, this survey document had life beyond my research. It was widely shared inside the company and helped the executive team plan for changes in commuting patterns, and it helped our supply team craft recommendations for parking operators.
User Stories and Concept Testing
Using the survey findings and considerations like the project goals, executive expectations, value to our end users, and estimated feasibility, I created a list of 8 prioritized user stories.
Prioritization involved thinking through which problems were within our control (ie. solvable with functionality) versus those that were better-suited to general messaging or operator guidance. I also considered the long-term value of solving those problems. For example, if we wanted to indicate which facilities were cleaning more frequently, we'd need to create a new variable in our database and update 7,000 listings, and the solution also wouldn't live beyond 2021. Maybe not worth the effort.
I chose to focus in on two problems that would achieve our project goals, and address user's biggest concerns while parking: avoiding valet parking, and avoiding touching buttons or surfaces. Both seemed feasible at the product level and would have life beyond COVID-19.
To evaluate ideas on how to solve my prioritized user stories, I used remote moderated concept testing with low-fidelity iOS designs. Concept testing stood out as a good fit because I didn't expect to end up with complex flows (ie. usability risks were low), and the goal of my research was really to choose the best solutions to user problems and gauge the value of 'contactless parking.' iOS was chosen because it's our largest revenue driver (~60%) and the platform of choice for our commuter segment.
I talked to 9 SpotHero app users and asked open-ended questions about their new driving and commuting habits. I also had them talk through, and compare different solution concepts I put in front of them—a technique I picked up from IDEO.
1. Avoiding Valet Parking
To help safety-concern parkers avoid valet, I focused my iOS solution concepts on functionality that would allow a user to quickly restrict their search results to only show self parking. I explored different kinds of filter treatments, and making the "parking type" (valet/self) more prominent on our search results cards. Users seemed to gravitate towards concepts that offered speed and flexibility/forgiveness.
Key Learnings
✦ Users liked the ability to filter out valet
✦ Best options: self park quick filter pills, and displaying the parking type on cards
2. Avoiding Touching Buttons or Surfaces
To allow users avoid facilities with redemption methods that required touching buttons/gates, I mocked up concepts with hypothetical "contactless," "touch-free," and "interaction-free" callouts. I wanted to understand (1) if they were valuable to users, (2) if they were preferred to stating the specific redemption method (eg. QR code), and (3) which visual treatments were appealing.
Key Learnings
✦ Contactless or touch-free parking was well-received (further validation)
✦ Users generally understood that 'touch-free' referred to the redemption process
✦ Value-focused language ("touch-free") was preferred to the mechanics (QR code)
3. Contactless, Touchless or Interaction-Free?
Two of the questions the product teams had going in were: (1) if we build this functionality, what should we name it, and (2) which parking facilities would it apply to? To answer this question, I showed users pictures of different redemption methods, and had them answer if they were touch-free, interaction-free and/or contactless.
I learned from testing that it was easiest for users to understand whether something was touch-free, but "interaction-free" or "contactless" weren't always well-understood (eg. does "interaction-free" mean no human interaction or ticket machine interaction?"). I also learned that touch-free was also understood to exclude valet and redemption methods involving paper tickets.
Key Learnings
✦ Touch-free or touchless was the clearest term
✦ Touch-free excluded redemption methods involving paper tickets
✦ As expected, "touch-free" parking was also understood to exclude valet facilities
The Solution
After running the COVID-19 survey, talking to users in person, and concept testing the set of low-fidelity iOS mockups, the team and I felt confident moving forward with our solution: 'touchless parking' paired with a way for users to avoid valets.
Backend API
While I started design work on the user flows, I worked with backend developers to formalize our internal definition of 'touchless,' and figure out how we would indicate whether a facility was touchless in our facility rates API. In the end, we decided to structure touchless as a new facility amenity (amenities are things like "onsite staff" and "in/out privileges"). A new amenity would be a non-breaking endpoint change, and because filtering functionality in the app and website already used amenities, it would slot cleanly into existing logic.
Product Functionality
Concept testing had given me a good sense of what an effective solution might look like to address user needs. However, I also had to work under a handful of internal constraints around complexity, consistency and scalability:
Constraints
1. The solution should work across platforms iOS, Web and Android
2. The solution should work across all markets (esp. valet-heavy NYC)
3. The solution should not require >2wks engineering effort (one sprint)
In the end, the solution I put together was relatively simple. Instead of keeping self park and touchless amenities hidden in our filters panel, I exposed them as dynamic quick-filters. Because not of our markets have self park or touchless inventory, the quick filters were designed to only display= if 1 or search results contained facilities with those amenities. And finally, for clarity and to call attention, I included a onetime dismissible tooltip explaining the new functionality.
Branding and Communication
While engineers built out our new touchless and self park product filters, I worked with our marketing and PR teams to craft and write our "COVID-19 response" blog post that addressed safety concerns we couldn't solve for in our product. I also collaborated with our in-house visual designer on branding for our touchless parking initiative and our COVID-19 response. The sparkle motif for touchless was chosen to emphasize cleanliness, and the sturdy, heroic shield was chosen to emphasize safety + protection.
These visual elements were also to craft a landing page for touchless parking (to start to rank for the touchless keyword), and a consumer marketing email highlighting touchless and other safety initiatives to build trust and repeat usage.
Key Outcomes
Broadly speaking, I think this project was successful. Although the goals and KPI's were a little fuzzy going in, I give our team credit for adapting to the uncertainty of COVID-19 quickly, even if our solution wasn't perfect.
We were able to launch our new touchless and self park filter functionality across three platforms, craft a formal COVID-19 response blog post, build a touchless landing page for SEO credit, and launch an email marketing campaign for consumers in <8wks.
Project Learnings
I've always had an interest in product management and this project was an opportunity practice doing it, on a fairly demanding and immersive project. I worked closely with two excellent product managers and a director of product who pretty much gave me free rein over discovery, and supported me a lot during delivery.
On the whole, I think I was mostly successful in my PM/project lead role, but this project had a lot of moving parts and certainly wasn't easy. I was struck by how much communication was required and how many small details will fall through the cracks if you don't ensure they don't. After trying it myself, I certainly have a new appreciation for the work product managers do 😂
