ParkPlace

I. THE IDEA

ParkPlace was built under the belief that more often than not, the most effective solution is right in front of you. Joining the likes of Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb, ParkPlace’s innovative solution to the parking problem involves connecting people together. Instead of spending millions of dollars developing, building, and maintaining complex parking structures/facilities, why not capitalize on the untapped real estate already in place? Homes.

II. THE APP

ParkPlace is a peer-to-peer marketplace where homeowners can rent out their real estate to drivers in need of parking. Homeowners can list their backyards, driveways, or any other form of extra parking spaces to users to book on the app.

Target Market: Events, Students

*MVP and Beta Test at The Coliseum during LAFC Season

III. THE PARKPLACE WEBSITE

To supplement our iOS app, I wanted to have a landing page that would be able to explain how ParkPlace works and serve as a method for us to scout new venues and locations to scale to. The website would also help in dissuading any reservations potential users would have about ParkPlace.

Designed By: Ethan Glass, Julian Chan
Developed By: Julian Chan

Tools Used:
Adobe XD (UI/UX)
Adobe After Effects (Home Screen Animation)
Adobe Photoshop (Digital Asset Creation/Modification)
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, jQuery (Front End)
NodeJS (Back End)

Website Overview
SHORT TERM
LONG TERM
These forms were created in order to receive user input on where people would like to see ParkPlace scale to next. In the scenario where a user stumbles upon our app or website, they will have the opportunity to input their desired location notifying us of potential markets and simultaneously adding them to our mailing list.

IV. BETA TEST (EXPOSITION PARK)

Our beta test was located at Exposition Park during the Los Angeles Football Club season, and intended to assist LAFC fans in pre-booking a parking space before home games.

At the time, we had already recruited a few homeowners and on boarded them to our platform, the next step was acquiring drivers. However, we didn’t just want to blindly go out to an LAFC game and hand people a generic flyer to download our app. We wanted to see the data, see the metrics for each marketing tactic we conducted.

Game Plan:
Hand out postcards before each LAFC game with ParkPlace information and website link, and track how many people clicked on the link and eventually downloaded the app. Redirect iPhone users to the app store to download and Android users to a form to record their information and alert them once we launch on Android.

The Postcard

Instead of a generic flyer printed on an A4 piece of paper, I wanted to create something more visually aesthetic and easily stored. Because the last thing people want is having to fold a big piece of paper only to have it stick out of their pocket the entire game.

I also wanted to make sure that a few wireframes were displayed on the postcard, so that people could more easily visualize and comprehend our concept.
Postcard Front
Postcard Back

The Website (Marketing Analytics)

The goal of the website was to immediately redirect the user to the app store to download the app. But what if the user was on Android? To remedy this issue, the website I developed utilized media queries in CSS and detected the screen width of the device it was being viewed from and manipulated the content accordingly.
iPhone
Android
I also integrated the website with Google Analytics in order to accurately monitor how effective our postcards were in leading to conversions.

** We gave out 100 postcards, 23 people clicked on the website, 15 people downloaded the app, with this we were able to calculate our Customer Acquisition Cost and determine if other forms of marketing would be more efficient in generating conversions **

V. ANDROID ALTERNATIVE

ParkPlace was presented with a huge opportunity to provide parking for a large tailgate event hosted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan group “The Buccaholics.” However, because we were only launched on iOS, we were faced with a huge dilemma, what do we do about the Android users? A simple answer was to begin developing Android immediately. But there were still bugs and additional features needed to pushed to our IOS app, and we didn’t have enough funding to completely take on a new development project.

So in order to provide an alternative platform for Android users, I quickly developed a website that would allow users to submit their vehicle information and location preference, which would allow us to book their space for them. This ensured that ParkPlace was still brokering the parking transaction.

Designed By: Julian Chan
Developed By: Julian Chan

Tools Used:
Adobe XD (UI/UX)
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, jQuery (Front End)
NodeJS w/ Nodemailer(Back End)

Android Form

VI. NEW USER FLOWS + APP FEATURES (BETA TEST FEEDBACK)

Through the course of our Beta Test, I found that our homeowners were having issues with the way their spaces were being priced. At the time, ParkPlace had only allowed for hourly-rate parking spaces. Because of this, our homeowners were afraid that they would lose out on potential revenue due to some drivers staying in their parking space for a shorter period of time than others. This is when we decided to include a flat-rate feature, allowing for a fixed price at a fixed time duration. Ethan Glass (cofounder) and I designed the wireframes and created the new flat-rate feature user flow to present to our development team. We had UX in mind the entire time.

I also developed the user flow behind our monthly rate feature. A model that set ParkPlace a part from the majority of our competitors is our long-term model of providing parking for schools. Student parking is a dilemma in the majority of schools around the United States, not only are student parking permits absurdly expensive, but also more often than not the school doesn’t have the supply to meet their demand for parking. ParkPlace would provide monthly parking spaces to students enabling them with a cheaper, more convenient alternative to on-campus parking.

Flat Rate
Monthly Rate
Homeowner Flow
Driver Flow
Homeowner Flow
Driver Flow