Enhancing On-Site Operations

Discovery

Ideation

Conceptualization

Refining & Testing

Solution

Project Learnings

Enhancing On-Site Operations

Creating a seamless parking experience for drivers by helping operators prepare for SpotHero reservations at their garage today.

Project Stats

Weeks Timeline
(3 sprints)

Internal Usability Tests

Operator Usability Tests

Team

Lele Nelson - Product designer
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Anthony Arguelles- Product manager (PM)

Alexey Zinger - Engineering manager (EM)

Sami Meyers - Product marketing specialist

Tools

Figma, Figjam

Key Skills

User research, data visualization, end-to-end product design

The reservations page is not optimized to view reservations happening today

The Control Panel B2B app enables parking operators to manage and self-service their inventory and rates for parking facilities through SpotHero.

The most frequently visited page in the Control Panel is the Reservations page, which displays a basic table of rental data for both upcoming and past reservations.

A key challenge is that most Control Panel users are not on-site to fully understand current parking lot conditions. By optimizing the Reservations page to make today's reservations easier to view, operators can better prepare for SpotHero bookings and access the information needed to adjust rates and inventory in response to on-site conditions.

The why

Better on-site visibility helps operators optimize inventory and pricing, boosting SpotHero’s revenue through increased market share, inventory, and competitive pricing.

Design Goals

Increase SH Market Share

Improve Driver Pricing

Increase Engagement

Discovery

Discovery Planning & Alignment

I led a sync with core stakeholders to define the project scope and align on key opportunities to address, setting the stage for effectively guiding the project's discovery goals.

Discovery Research Goals

Understand on-site vs. off-site parking operations

Examine the tools, tasks, actors, and strategies parking operators use on-site and off-site for optimization and decision-making.
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Understand how operators use parking reservation data

Understanding how operators use reservation data is key to streamlining workflows, optimizing inventory, and improving pricing.
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Understand product gaps in the current reservation page

Identify gaps in the reservation page to design a solution that helps operators track real-time activity and upcoming reservations, ensuring space availability.

user session Data reveals Pain points on existing reservation page

Watching live user sessions of the control panel via Sentry Replay helped to understand how users are using the current Reservations page and their pain points.

Core tasks observed on existing reservations page

Quickly filtering for today’s reservations

I observed users setting their filter to today’s date, indicating a focus on current garage status before adjusting rates or inventory.

Viewing license plates and rental IDs

On mobile, users repeatedly scrolled horizontally, likely to view rental IDs and license plates on opposite sides of the table.

market research with Sales team

I met with sales team members with on-site management experience at parking lots to understand operator needs around reservation data and garage activity. This insight helped me ask more informed questions during operator sessions.

Operators predict daily sales based on current revenue and the number of incoming reservations

Operators use confirmed upcoming reservations and current daily revenue to predict total earnings for the day. If they aren't on track to meet their revenue goals, it's a signal to adjust rates.

Operators optimize drive-up spaces based on incoming reservation data

Operators use reservation start times to anticipate traffic peaks, adjust inventory, and add staff if needed. They track license plates to verify inventory, confirm payment, and prevent violations.

User research with Operators

After gaining a general understanding from the sales team of how operators use reservation data, I wanted to explore in more detail the operator experience coordinating with on-site staff to assess conditions and adjust rates, especially since they are often off-site.

Operators have communication challenges in coordinating with on-site staff when working off-site

Operators struggle with direct communication between on-site workers and drivers, causing delays, as on-site staff often lack tools or reservation knowledge.

Operators have challenges with visualizing reservation data effectively

Better visibility into reservation overlaps and accurate space data is needed, as current tables may not reflect on-the-ground realities, hindering inventory and rate management.

Operators have difficulties in accurately predicting and managing demand

Operators struggle to predict traffic and revenue due to varying demand types. They seek better insights into user intent and active reservations to optimize rates and inventory in real-time.

Team alignment on the opportunity

After synthesizing research findings, I led a meeting with core stakeholders to review the findings and align on opportunities to address.

Key operator pain points to address

Challenges in Viewing Reservation Start Times and Predicting Driver Arrival

"As an operator, I find it difficult to determine how many drivers will arrive at a given time without reviewing each reservation's start time."

Challenges in Managing Reservation Overlaps and Space Optimization

"As an operator, I struggle with understanding reservation overlaps, which makes it difficult to determine if I have available space to optimize or turn spots."

Ideation

Prepping for ideation

In preparation for ideation, I created a deck to share with ideation session participants summarizing key points from discovery and the pain points to address with a design solution.

Ideation workshop with team

We asked our ideation session participants to focus on designing for facility managers, who have the authority to set rates and inventory in the Control Panel. A key part of their role is understanding the on-site conditions of the parking lots they manage, enabling them to provide operational recommendations.

Key takeaways from ideation

Share enhanced daily reservation insights

Examine the tools, tasks, actors, and strategies parking operators use on-site and off-site for optimization and decision-making.
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Visualized trends & performance

Offer intuitive traffic and revenue visualizations by time of day and vertical, helping operators track earnings and optimize decision-making.
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Provide actionable drill-downs into the data

Identify gaps in the reservation page to design a solution that helps operators track real-time activity and upcoming reservations, ensuring space availability.

Conceptualization

Refining in low fidelity first

I focused on low-fidelity solutions to prioritize identifying the key metrics that would be most actionable for operators.

Focusing on the metrics to show ✔

The metrics shown to operators needed to be high level enough to inspire a drill down into further detail on the page.

Refining content for visualization ✔

Understanding which data to visualize was shaped by our access to it. With fewer than 20% of facilities having live parking pass scan data, we were limited in sharing real-time traffic figures.

Refining & Usability Testing

Stakeholder alignment

After syncing with the engineering manager, backend engineer, and getting feedback from the revenue team, we determined that displaying data for multiple facilities could be complicated by time zone differences.

We decided that viewing the page in single facility mode would be more effective, as it better guides operators to take self-service actions, like updating rates or inventory, based on that facility's reservation data. Those self-service pages are viewed in single facility mode anyway.

goals of Usability testing

Validate the day to day experience of operators

How do operators currently track, allocate, and manage incoming reservations?

Determine if metrics provided are sufficient

Are the metrics sufficient to provide an operator with a good picture of SpotHero reservations on-site?

Determine what other data points would help

Do the designs properly communicate with enough detail to make key decisions on-site?

Testing with Operators

I met with two types of operators: those managing event rates and inventory and those overseeing valet services. Both are responsible for understanding on-site conditions to adjust rates and inventory based on traffic.

Usability Insights

Here are some of the insights we gathered from operators that I used to iterate into the final solution.

Positive User Feedback

Expressed that design would help them plan to make room based on timing and parking of existing drivers. They also said they would use it to plan inventory.

Both operators liked that it is a single facility view. Expressed that if the design did allow user to view as an aggregate, it might be confusing and they would need to see everything broken out at a facility level anyway.

Both operators were able to clearly read the number of reservations by segment accurately from the graph, showing that the graph was easy to digest and understand.

Pain Points Revealed

Operators only wanted to see valid reservations, not cancelled reservations since these won't be taken into account when planning for upcoming drivers.

Both operators struggled with identifying the correct time meant by the "Starts today" metric, revealing that copy changes would be required.

The Solution

Providing better visibility into SpotHero reservations on-site promotes operational efficiency for parking operators

Providing parking operators with improved visualizations of incoming SpotHero reservations will enable them to optimize their garages more effectively. Enhanced optimization will encourage operators to increase inventory allocations for SpotHero, driven by the ease of tracking reservations.

old reservation page

new: Today's reservation page

While preserving the existing reservations page, we've created an operationally focused page to help view reservations on-site today.

Final Product

Measuring success

Feature satisfaction score

Feature satisfaction was measured post-release on a scale of 1 to 5, with the modal placed on the new Today's Reservations page. We successfully met our goal, achieving an 80% satisfaction rate for the feature.

Project Reflection

01. Lean on internal resources before external resources

Leveraging internal teams for market insights before interviewing external users is valuable. Teams like sales, who work closely with users, provide key insights that help refine discovery research questions, ensuring more effective user sessions.

02. Focus on designing in low fidelity

Designing in low fidelity from the start allowed for rapid iteration, especially when deciding which metrics to share with operators. Feedback from designers and engineers helped refine the metrics, which were later validated through operator usability testing.

Shout out to smashingstocks for their cool illustrations I used in this case study.