Personas
Name: Maryln Sosa
Age: 19
Race: Asian
Gender: Female
Work role: student/commuter
Goals: get to class on time safely
Main tasks: Driving to campus and find the closest, most convenient parking spot.
Usage story: always late to her class because she can’t find a good parking spot. She has missed a couple of pop quizzes that were handed out at the beginning of her class.
Name: Rebecca Jacobs
Age: 22
Race: Caucasian
Gender: Female
Work role: student/ bus rider
Goals: get to class on time safely
Main tasks: uses the bus to commute into campus
Usage story: she has a car, she takes the bus so that she can avoid driving in traffic, but is sometimes still late for class. One of the reasons for this is the NextBus app is often inaccurate or unresponsive, and which causes her to wait at the bus stop near her house for long periods of time or try to guess the time that the bus will come.
Name:James Jimothy
Age: 18
Race: Latino
Gender: Male
Work role: student/ biker
Goals: get to class on time
Main tasks: biking around campus
Usage story: James is a freshman,
He struggles to find bike parking outside of the large lecture halls before his 9AM class, causing him to be late sometimes. In addition, James often finds himself caught in inclement weather.
Design Alternatives
Design 1: Parking Sensor
​
Our parking sensor will be placed in front of every parking spot available on campus and transmit to a central censor for every lot. The central sensor will receive the information and display how many parking spaces are available, as well as where they are in that specific lot. The requirements that are met with this system concern students not knowing where they can park, as well as which parking lots to head towards. This will cut down on worries of commuters when coming in for class in the morning as well as provide valuable data to help assess the state of parking on campus as a whole.
Design 2: Mobile App
​
The mobile app will effectively count on users self-reporting their parking, such that all commuter students will have a general idea of where there is parking available. The design needs that this idea satisfies lay in the cost concerns of the DOTS department at UMD. Additionally, there is potential to have a very basic rewards system for consistently reporting ones parking. We also wanted the application provide multiple resources for each user group. Bikers would get links to campus biking information through DOTS, a link for registering a bike, as well as a live updating map that would show where bike racks were located with additional details on condition, features (covered/uncovered, etc.), and level of occupation. The bus rider side of the application is arguably the most ambitious in terms of features. It would give users the ability to track the buses but also provide tools to help them plan their schedule around bus times as well as reserve a seat (for frequent, daily, bus riders) on high volume buses so that they would not have to wait in a line at the bus stops.
Design 3: Underground bike parking system
​
Our third, final, and wacky alternative is below-ground garage storage for all bicycles. The design requirements that are met with this idea mainly surround the bike storage and security issue. The automated elevator system will allow users to simply get off their bike, insert it into a mechanical bike rack, and press a button to send it into the storage area for guaranteed secure storage from potential thievery as well as the elements. In addition, this would allow high traffic areas to add in 100-200 bike parking spots without taking up much area on the surface, meaning this underground garage could be installed in a convenient spot near buildings.
Sketches
​
Parking sensor
Mobile app
Underground parking system
Scenarios
Design 1. Parking sensor
​
The following is a situation where our persona Marlyn, the car commuter, utilizes this design: “I wonder why traffic is so bad this morning. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, must be bad drivers. *Looks at clock* Oh shoot! It’s already 8:52!!!! I really hope I can find parking quickly. *Remembers about the application for the parking sensors* Ooh I’ll just check the app and make sure there’s parking. *Marlyn opens the application while at a stop light and quickly sees that there are some spots in the middle of the lot* Yes bless, I think I’ll just make it in time if I rush, I think there’s a quiz today in the beginning of class. I’m glad I could see where there’s parking so I didn’t have to drive around!”
​
Design 2. Mobile app
​
Rebecca Jacobs is a UMD student that lives in Germantown, MD and takes the 141 Gaithersburg route to the university on MWF. One day, she was running late for the bus. She got out of her house at 8:30, when she usually leaves at 8:20. While she was warming up her car to leave for the lot, she worrying if she could find a spot on the bus so that she doesn’t have to wait. “Oh wait! I can just use the new UMD Commuter App (name TBD) to reserve a spot on the bus!” She opens up the app and reserves a seat in a click of a button.
​
Design 1. Underground bike parking system
​
