July 2025 · UX Researcher, UI/UX Designer · 7 weeks · 14 participants
Parking Management Companion App
Research that guided the design of a new and improved parking management companion app for Quickteller.
The problem
Parking is often a pain point in busy cities and commercial hubs: long queues at entry, paper tickets that get lost, delays at payment points, and bottlenecks at exits. The parking management app is meant to make that process digital — from entry to exit — so people can skip the frustrations of a paper ticket.
The goal was to understand how people interact with the product and improve the experience. We also researched global parking standards, mapping common flows and comparing them with ours.
Process
- Receive brief and define objectives
- Initial research
- Ideation and wireframing
- Stakeholder review
- High-fidelity design
- Usability testing
- Iteration and refinement
- Final deliverables and results
Who we designed for
Urban commuters, mall and event attendees, and corporate employees all need convenience, speed, and reliability when parking in busy urban environments. They hit the same pain points: long queues, lost tickets, slow payments, and uncertainty about availability.
That pointed to a few design priorities: pre-arrival ticketing, real-time availability, in-app payments, notifications and status updates, and tools for people managing more than one session. The app needed to stay simple for a one-off visit and still work for frequent or corporate users.
From sketches to screens
Early sketches covered scanning a QR code, an active session, success states, and session history. Digital wireframes then locked the four hub actions: Start Parking, Parking History, Request Keytag, and Manage Keytags.
After reviewing the wireframes, stakeholders asked for an onboarding flow so first-time users could understand the process, and to deactivate Start Parking once a session was already active.
How we tested
We used a mixed approach: unmoderated sessions to see organic use, remote sessions to reach people who could not be there in person, and in-person testing to catch body language and ask follow-up questions.
Breaking the test into flows helped us see friction inside each step and across the whole journey:
- Generate QR code
- Scan and activate session
- Complete payment and exit
Generate QR code
- Success rate
- 89.9%
- Misclicks
- 46.2%
- Drop-offs
- 11.1%
Almost half of people clicked the wrong thing at least once. About one in ten abandoned the task — a problem because it is the first required step. Misclicks came from icon confusion and unclear button hierarchy. People needed short orientation copy.
I got a bit confused with the buttons. I probably was supposed to start parking, but I ended up going to Request Keytag, because I thought I needed to pay first.
On the walkthrough itself, people were not reading the text, the icons felt confusing, and the cards felt like the next steps in the flow rather than an explanation.
Global practice was clear: do not make the user generate anything at the gate. The system should already know them when they arrive. If they have not generated a QR beforehand, they fumble at the gate and a queue forms — which defeats the “faster than tickets” goal.
The home screen offered Start Parking, history, and keytags all at once. That added cognitive load and pulled attention away from entering the lot. We recommended putting the entry QR on the home screen, showing the active session once they were inside, and moving history and keytags into a menu. We also recommended a web option for people without the app, and a notification such as “You’re close to X Mall. Your entry QR is ready.”
Activate session
We showed the QR page to see if the presentation was clear enough for people to know what to do with the code. Most understood they should scan, but not perfectly. Clarity sat at 7.6 out of 10. People understood the action, not the mechanics — where to scan, what the scanner looks like, how to position the phone. One person wanted the code emailed as a backup.
I know I’m supposed to scan the QR code but I don’t know how.
We recommended showing someone scanning at a gate, using copy like “Hold your phone screen against the scanner at the entrance gate,” and keeping the QR as the focus.
Exit and payment
We asked how people would use the app to leave the parking lot.
- Misclicks
- 86%
- Avg. task time
- 87.6s
- Very easy
- 0%
Eighty-six percent misclicked. Average time was 87.58 seconds — too long for a payment action that should take under 30 seconds. Ease of use: 50% neutral, 25% easy, 25% hard, and nobody said very easy.
People did not know how to get to payment. The blue session card did not look clickable. There were several steps before Pay Now. Competing information pulled them off the main action. One person said they should not reach the exit only to realize they still need to pay — the flow should encourage paying before leaving.
We recommended uncluttering the UI so pay is the focus, and adding an End session button so the next step is obvious.
When we asked what they would change about entry to exit:
Make the entry process more streamlined and clearer. Also, define the process for exiting so it prevents unnecessary queues.
There should have been a Pay for parking screen immediately after registering to park.
Probably button rearrangement: parking, parking history.
Iteration
We tested new onboarding visuals in two ways: matching an image to each step’s copy, and judging which three-step set flowed most naturally. That helped us pick visuals that support the action and hold together across generate, scan, and leave.
Result
The usability test score was initially 7.3. After implementing the feedback and retesting, the score improved to 9.4.