Project 5: SpotHero

The Context

SpotHero is a digital parking app for drivers to book and pay for the best local parking spots. I worked with SpotHero to design an innovative new electric charging feature for their parking platform. Leading a team of four in the Segal Design Institute’s digital product development studio course, I tackled the end-to-end product development lifecycle to present a comprehensive product strategy and user-validated prototype to senior stakeholders at SpotHero.

Check out our final presentation deck!

Part 1. The Challenge & Solution

The Challenge

Electric vehicle charging and parking operations systems are extremely fragmented, making it difficult for a driver to easily find and pay for an available charging location, for the right price, at the right time, and at the right location.

How can SpotHero become the de facto charging marketplace for all charging integrations, powering EV drivers on the go and meeting them where they are?

Imagine...

You're driving downtown tonight.

It's date night, and you're seeing a special someone at Au Cheval in West Loop, Chicago.

But oh no! The charge on your electric vehicle is low.

You're worried you won't have enough charge to get back home tonight. You need to find parking in the city where you can also charge your car.

What can you use?

Our Solution

Using SpotHero's new EV charging feature, you can reserve and pay for parking spots and EV charging, all in one app.

Part 2. Defining Product Strategy & Business Value

Market Analysis

In a market that is notoriously slow to evolve, electric vehicle infrastructure and demand are approaching mass adoption fast. Parking facilities are positioned uniquely to charge these vehicles while their car is parked.
‍

Product Vision Board

Objectives & Key Results

Part 3. Understanding Our User

User Survey

From a survey of 125 electric vehicle drivers, we found that:

Target Customer: About 70% of EV drivers surveyed hit our target consumer - people who park in the city and charge their cars on-the-go.

Big Insight: People were very enthusiastic about a new service to integrate parking & EV charging! 89% of EV drivers said they would or might use this service.

“I think this is a real revolutionary technology that's only going to gain ground as the decades go by.”
“When will it be available?"
“I think this is great. I hope it gets implemented.”

Common reasons why people chose to charge their car on-the-go included:
a. When in need or in a hurry
b. When traveling long distances
c. When it’s available and convenient

User Profiles

We defined two user personas based on our user survey, user interviews, and target consumer, focusing on a range of ages and occupations.

User Journey Map

To understand gaps in the current end-to-end user experience, we created a current state user journey map of SpotHero’s “look, book, and park” experience - without an integrated charging feature.
‍

The two primary pain points we identified in this current state experience were:

help

Uncertainty surrounding charger availability and compatibility, leading to the possibility that no chargers are available or work upon arrival.

repeat

Fragmented use of two separate platforms, making the download, account creation, search, and payment process tedious and disorganized.

Part 4. Designing & Testing Prototypes

User Flow

We conducted a white-boarding session to identify points along the user flow to integrate new tasks, pages, and features.‍

blue = current user flow | purple = new user flow

Competitive Analysis

I downloaded 4 electric charging apps, analyzing their map page, filter feature, charging station page, payment system, and charging pass to inform my design.
‍‍‍

Mid-Fi Prototyping

Armed with a user flow, insights from user research, and sketches, I created wireframes and went through 3 rounds of design iterations to create a final high-fidelity prototype.
‍‍‍

Concept Test

After a design review of our first prototype, we launched a concept test to 125 more EV drivers to gather data to validate our design decisions. Data from this test can be viewed below in our final features.

Some sample questions we asked included:

Q1. Charging Station Information: What information would you want to want to see about a charging station before you decide which one to use?

Q2. Payment System: Would you prefer to pay for charging upfront (during the time of reservation) or at the end of your charging session?

Moderated User Testing

I conducted moderated user testing of our second and third prototype iterations and applied direct user feedback to improve my designs.

Some key results from testing included:

User Satisfaction Rates: We achieved exceptional user satisfactions rates of over 90%

Task Success Rates: Over two rounds of testing, we improved task success rates by over 40%

Final Features

Our final design has 4 key features. Check them out below!
‍
F1: Map & Spot Details Card (Look Stage)
F2: EV Charging Filter (Look Stage)
‍F3: Book/Reserve Charger (Book Stage)
F4: Charging Pass (Park & Charge Stage)
‍

Reflection (& pats on the back ☺️)

R1. Driving my design decisions with data

I was super psyched to have access to great tools to collect user data in this project. The concept test I launched in Feedback Loop helped support more informed design decisions across each stage of the user flow, integrating insights from user feedback while also providing answers to complex questions surrounding the payment system and charging pass.

R2. Expanding to new sustainable markets with an established product

This was one of the coolest design challenges I’ve had the chance to work on. It opened my eyes to the vision that electric vehicles are the future! I’ve personally never owned or driven an electric vehicle, but this project gave me a chance to dive deep into an electric vehicle driver’s experience. Now when I get into an Uber, I notice if it’s electric ⚡️. It was challenging and meaningful to work on a feature that could contribute to the growth and vision of an established product, by pushing it into a new sustainable market and consumer base.