No Parking!?
User Experience
Use of curbside coloured lines along city roads to depict zones for No-Parking, pick-up/drop-off, un/loading and emergency vehicles.
July – August 2022
Visibility problems of ‘No Parking’ signs on roads in Indian cities leads to parking violations and penalties.
Design Brief
People often get fined for parking in No Parking zones without noticing the sign. A new concept for the Regional Transport Office uses colour-coding to mark prohibited parking areas, reducing confusion and fines.
This system will introduce pavement markings, specifically communication parking policies in tier-1 cities of India.
Objectives
1. Drivers/riders do not need to pay fines for parking in a prohibited parking zones without their knowledge
2. Drivers/riders get more clarity of the parking regulations
3. There is a majorly decreased chance of road blocks/bottlenecks due to improper parking of a vehicle
4. Residents of the area will not have an issue with vehicles parking outside their premises
5. Commercial establishments could have a designated space for loading/unloading, without private vehicles taking up parking space
6. Traffic around commercial establishments would be regulated
Functions of the system
1. Clear communication of parking policies through pavement markings
2. Ensure fewer obstructions on roads
3. Clear footpaths for pedestrians
4. Designated un/loading parking space for commercial establishments, for a limited time.
Designer goals
Colour communication
Understanding the psychology of users
Introducing creative solutions
Bring Indian systems to par with international standards
Client goals
Reduce pavement obstructions by incorrectly parked vehicles
Increase road efficiency
Spread awareness
Happier, obedient citizens
Target audience
Minimum 18 years of age and licensed by the RTO (have studied rules and regulations of roads and driving safely to clear the Learner’s License test).
Live in tier-1 cities (Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkato, Ahmedabad, and Pune). User needs clear information about parking zones.
They spend time aimlessly driving around area, looking for parking zones.
They end up parking in a No Parking zone for a short amount of time to quickly run an errand, creating bottlenecks or traffic.
They park in No Parking zones, giving their phone number to a person nearby. Or they fully unknowingly park in a No Parking zone.
Although, theres not enough information about parking zones nowadays. Arguments of traffic police. Parking/towing fines.
Survey objectives
To understand whether the majority of users are aware of on-street parking regulations.
To interview users about their experiences and uncertainties regarding parking and no parking zones, and how they deal with such circumstances.
To uncover users’ prior experiences with parking fines.
To understand how users interpret pavement colours in relation to parking.
To develop a system to solve common parking problems and implement the solution, along with spreading awareness of new policies.
User research
Scenario: Girish Khare is travelling by himself to an area in the suburbs of Mumbai that are new to him. He planned this excursion at a time that was not peak hour, so that he could find an accesible parking space to park his car. He now needs to find a parking space.
Project sustainability
Upon implementation of these new parking policies, the incorrect parking fine fee would increase. This would make people take pavement marking and parking regulations more seriously.
It is crucial to make the implementation of the new policy well-known to the pubic. For instance, when the helmet policies became stricter, the government launched an awareness campaign. After the campaign, if people were still caught riding their vehicles without a helmet, there were chaged a hefty fine.
I believe that the implementation of these two new policies should also be made aware to the public in the same manner.
Learnings
Throughout this project, I learned to empathise with the user and a user group, understanding their exact experience, and problem solving to improve that specific feeling through different methodologies.
Challenges
Since this was my first user experience project, I did not understand the level of focused research I had to do, and ended up undertaking problems that could not be solved through UX alone.
I overcame this problem by taking a step back and narrowing down on the original problem statement.
