Project 2

Overview

With the rise of curbside delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats, the city of Pittsburgh faced increased double parking and idling, causing residents frustration around street parking. To address this, the Pittsburgh Parking Authority introduced Smart Loading Zones (SLZs)—curbside spaces managed by AI (Computer Vision) cameras, offering 15 minutes of free parking before charging drivers.

Three years into the pilot program, we were engaged to evaluate the user experience for Pittsburgh’s residents and drivers to ensure the zones met their intended purpose of reducing vehicle congestion. Through human-centered design, we reimagined the parking experience—making it more intuitive and flexible to encourage adoption, rule compliance, and ensure SLZs fulfilled their intended purpose of reducing congestion.

What we delivered:

A high-fidelity Figma mobile prototype with UI flows, a redesigned parking sign, and a video demo of an interactive onboarding experience.

What I did:

I led internal workshops for ideation, data analysis, and prototyped our final mobile payment flow. My team and I collaborated on UXR planning, ideation, protoyping, and testing.

Team:

4 Product Designers, Researchers

Timeline:

3 months

Problem Discovery

We started by uncovering painpoints with the current service experience, conducting a heuristic evaluation, observational research, and intercept interviews at SLZs with 15 Pittsburgh residents and drivers.

3 key findings informed our focus with experience improvements:

‍Low awareness and usage: Many residents were unsure on how to use SLZs or whether they were eligible to park there, reporting that the parking signage was unclear on these issues.
Cumbersome onboarding: Through a heuristic evaluation of the existing SLZ app, we identified that users faced 7–10 steps before completing payment—far too many for a quick-stop service.
Misuse and confusion: Drivers frequently parked with hazard lights or paid at incorrect machines, mistaking SLZs for conventional parking spaces.

Problem Statement: How might we improve understanding of the SLZ's processes while offering Pittsburgh drivers more flexible options for registration and payment?

Final Solution

My team tackled multiple points of user confusion by redesigning both physical and digital touchpoints, ensuring on-the-go efficiency and improving clarity around the service for drivers.

01

Simple, Informative Signage

We redesigned the current sign to provide a distinct, intuitive entry point for using the parking service.

All 5 usability testing participants referenced information from the sign during roleplay scenarios, indicating comprehension of rules from the redesigned sign.

A redesigned parking sign to clearly outline the rules and alert users they are being filmed.

A GIF of onboarding texts with the user sharing more information about the Smart Loading Zone and reminding them to pay after using the service.

02

Interactive Onboarding

Automated, friendly text messages designed to ease stress and build confidence while using the new street parking service.

“[The reminders] make me feel in control.” Usability Testing Participant

03

Efficient, Clear Payment Process

Streamlined for fewer steps and enhanced transparency so users can effortlessly understand payment calculations.

“Easy, Convenient, Immediate.” Usability Testing Participant

A gif of the 3-step payment flow on a mobile phone.

Design Approach

Evaluating the current SLZ User Experience

To uncover key friction points in the user experience, our team conducted a heuristic evaluation and observational research. By assessing the system against usability principles (Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics) and directly observing how people interacted with Smart Loading Zones, we validated our hypotheses and gained insight into real-world challenges. This research was critical in identifying high-impact pain points, ensuring our design efforts focused on the most pressing barriers to adoption and compliance.

Conducting observational research at a smart loading zone to learn more about the current user experience.

A snapshot from my heuristic evaluation report, analyzing unnecessary data collection leading to a prolonged onboarding process.

Concept Testing

My team brainstormed several early concepts to address pain points uncovered in the discovery stage, testing whether solutions increased clarity and efficiency of the service. We elicited feedback on potential solutions from Pittsburgh drivers during a round of remote storyboarding sessions.

We learned that drivers need:

‍Low-commitment options: Avoiding app downloads whenever possible.
Weather-proof solutions: Physical interactions, like kiosks, were difficult during inclement weather.
Clear payment records: Drivers wanted proof of transactions to feel confident about compliance.
Clear signage: All participants described looking for signs to guide their decision-making around street parking.

Exploring tradeoffs: We first prototyped a redesigned sign and physical kiosk to test whether a more visual, conventional payment method would improve rule compliance, accepting the tradeoff of physical inconvenience. However, users quickly reverted to preferring a mobile solution when faced with the kiosk during prototype testing.

This confirmed that a mobile browser platform, rather than an app, would be the most user-friendly option—offering low-commitment, weather-proof, and transparent access to the service.

One of the 12 storyboards we showed to participants to understand solution needs and constraints.

Our first mid-fidelity prototype to test tradeoffs with conventionality and physical inconvenience.

Final Usability Testing Results

We conducted high-fidelity usability testing with five Pennsylvania drivers, presenting them with various scenarios with SLZs and asking them to explain their decision-making process for each one.

All participants justified their decisions in scenarios by citing information from the sign correctly, showing comprehension and understanding of information on the sign.
3/5 participants said they would use SLZs if they knew they would only use it for a few minutes.
All participants were able to use the website prototype to pay for parking without extra instructions or help.

Next Steps

Handoff to the Pittsburgh Parking Authority: We crafted a poster displaying our research and solution to a program representative for the SLZ. Our solution is currently under consideration for implementation.

Impact

By leveraging human-centered(UX) research and design, our project led to:

Uncovering detrimental user experience issues that were leading to idling and improper usage of zones.
Decreasing steps in the onboarding and payment flow from 7 to 3, creating a faster and more efficient payment process.
Reducing confusion for new users by supporting comprehension of rules through redesigning multiple touchpoints(sign, onboarding, payment).

Learnings

Explore tradeoffs early to accelerate learning about what works
On previous projects, I have oftentimes jumped from discovery research into prototyping. This was the first project where we reviewed storyboards of early concepts with users before investing in prototyping. This was incredibly useful and impactful, as we learned about their needs, identified tradeoffs, and uncovered underlying motivations guiding their interactions with parking services.
Leverage UX + UI as an opportunity to increase transparency of AI systems
Initially, I assumed that people would be having issues or concerns with computer-vision/AI cameras recording the street to monitor usage of SLZs. No residents brought this issue up in interviews, showing how poorly the city explained and made people aware that they were being recorded. We displayed this on the sign to make people aware of monitoring to ensure informed consent and awareness of being recorded.
Lean research to boost value and usability of solutions
On this project, we worked with little to no resources for UX research. Talking to residents on the streets near SLZs was invaluable and helped us understand a portion of the general sentiment around the new service. It was initially intimidating to approach people on the street and ask them questions, yet the results made the effort highly worth it.

Redesigning an AI-driven street parking service to reduce friction for new users