1. Introduction
This proposal is an application that can be used on any infotainment system that supports Apple CarPlay. The application is to be by people who wish to find and reserve a parking spot available near his or her destination and pay for their parking using a smart device rather than a parking meter. The main advantage of this service is the possibility of finding a guaranteed spot, which will help the user save time and make them aware of how and when to get to their parking spot, instead of travelling to the destinations and being unsure of where to park. The main task is to allow users to view the availability than reserve and pay for the chosen parking space around their destination area. Hence the drivers make their decision based on real time parking availability information and also the price of the parking slot which will help them make reservations.
2. Critical Exploration
In this section, the author investigates one of the three dominant paradigms in the conceptual and visual design of user interfaces, i.e. metaphoric. The other two bring implementation centric and idiomatic. Metaphoric interfaces are known to shown how things work. (Cooper et al 2007).Some investigators believe that since users are able to interpret interfaces based on previous knowledge of the source of the metaphor, desktops should be the starting point for an interface design. (Apple Human Interface Guidelines, 1987; Carroll et al 1988; Blumenthal, 1990).The authors of The Handbook of Human– Computer Interaction state that “metaphors allow the transference or mapping of knowledge from a source domain (familiar area of knowledge) to a target domain (unfamiliar area or situation), enabling humans to use specific prior knowledge and experience for understanding and behaving in situations that are novel or unfamiliar” (Carroll et al, 1997).
Metaphors in terms of user interface and interaction design is when a picture is used to symbolise the attribute or purpose of a thing i.e. visual metaphors. Metaphoric interfaces are the intuitive connections between the function and visual cues in an interface that are made by the user. Carplay is inbuilt with both a solid UX and also created for user safety. Its interactive design provides a conceptual design and strong feedback which upholds incredible user experience and meets the user’s expectations. CarPlay is also anticipatory. IPhone users will find the design approach the same as iPhones, hence will be able to use the same commands. In conclusion, CarPlay was created so that there is little to no difficulty for the new users to quickly access their tasks (Wilson, 2014).
The golden rule a UX designer should always consider when designing software is how he can allow his user to do more with less actions. When a user is required to do a lot of extra work to accomplish his goals or unnecessary clicks on a platform, there are more opportunities to mess it up, give up, lose interest, or become frustrated. In the digital age, we are constantly bombarded by information, anything that is not necessary is not only distracting it becomes exhausting.
Buttons which are metaphorical interface objects function differently from their literary equivalent. Gaver(1995) argues that interface metaphors create associations between attributes of function and of appearance for interface objects by conceptually mapping the functional attributes of the computer and everyday analogue. It is also claimed by Neale and Carroll that computing metaphors are an essential design strategy (Carroll et al, 1997).
Cooper argues that, “metaphors rely on associations perceived in similar ways by both the designer and the user”. It is easy for metaphors to fail if the designer and the user don’t have the same cultural background. However, there can also be significant misunderstanding if they have a similar culture. There are cases where metaphors fail to explain all of the functionality of the interface, which lead designers to abandon the metaphor thus leading to confusion in users (Cooper, 1995).
3. User Needs Analysis
3.1 Persona
According to Mulder et al (2007), the persona puts a face on user research that turns data into the kind of knowledge that leads to better user experiences and better applications. To Cooper a persona is a precise description of a user’s characteristics and what he or she wants to accomplish. The construction of a persona should not be based in text or image but on sound field research (Cooper,1999). Personas are frequently created for designers to clarify, describe, design and understand a user’s goals and behaviour patterns (Chang, 2008). Practices suggest that using personas can facilitate usable and useful designs (Cooper, 1999; Cooper et al, 2002; Grudin et al, 2002; Leggett et al, 2008). Even though a persona is not a real person, a picture and a picture is selected to depict a fictional archetypal. Also, it is described in a narrative form that has two types:
• To make the persona seem like a real person.
• To provide a vivid story about the needs of the persona in regards to the product being designed.
The narrative of a persona begins with a description of the individual the persona is, likes and dislikes, occupation and so on. According to Cooper et al and Grudin et al, the narrative brings the persona to life. The persona’s specific needs and personal goals in the terms of the product that is being designed are also described.
3.2 Scenario
Persona based scenarios are concise narrative descriptions of one or more personas using a product or service to achieve specific goals. They allow us to start our designs from a story describing an ideal experience from the persona’s perspective, focusing on people and how they may think and behave. The designers perform a type of role play in cresting these scenarios, walking the persona’s through their future interactions with the product or service, almost similar to actors improvising (Verplank, et al, 1993). This lead creating the final version – typically on tablets or whiteboards and later informs the detailed look and feel. In order to test the validity of the design ideas throughout the process, personas and scenarios are used. (Verplank et al, 1993).
Maria Ventura has landed an interview on Thursday in her dream company Ascend Learning LLC. She has decided to plan her day ahead for Thursday by researching on the fastest route to get to the interview, parking areas to park her Volkswagen Touareg and the closest area she can have lunch or dinner. After getting everything sorted out she goes to sleep awaiting her interview tomorrow.
After an hour and 18 minutes she finally reaches Walnut Creek and goes to the area she planned on parking her car. However, since it was 9:15, all the business men and women had parked and packed the whole parking lot, leaving no place for her to park her car. She didn’t want to be late for her meeting. After finding a spot, she rushes into her interview being 10 minutes late. Later the interviewer tells her about an app where she could reserve parking spots and pay for it using an app on her carPlay for an available time period beforehand.
3.3 Hierarchical Task Analysis
Hierarchical task analysis provides a thorough understanding of the user’s tasks. It can be done by:
o Identifying the users’ primary goals
o Detailing steps users must perform to accomplish their goals
o Optimising these procedures
In order to create personas, the designer should have a good understanding of the necessary tasks that have to be performed for the user to achieve their goals. (Analysis, 2017).
The above figure shows the Hierarchal Task Analysis for the task “RESERVE AND PARK IN A PARKING SPOT”. In this task, the application does not exist.
The above figure is the Hierarchy Task Analysis for the task “RESERVE AND PARK IN A PARKING SPOT”. In this task, the application does exist.
3.4 Environmental Analysis
This application can be used on any Apple product be it an iPhone, iPad or even on CarPlay in your car infotainment system. The application should be used preferably at home, work but for the sake of the persona the app will be used whilst she is safely parked in her car.
This analysis is accomplished through an iteratively refined scenario that starts with a “day in life” of the persona describing high level product touch points. This analysis is a refined scenario of the author’s persona’s “day spent finding a parking spot”, describing the usefulness of the product. Designers also take into account the user’s skills and physical capabilities. The main aim being to focus on the user goals that will help to avoid wasting time and resources whilst creating the application so that refined ways can be provided of meeting user needs.(ABOUT FACE 3)
In Maria Ventura’s persona, it says that one of her goals is to use her Nokia C3 whilst at work since she doesn’t want to get distracted. It is also mentioned that she’ll be using her IPad to help her in her office work. This has been taken into consideration whilst creating the application since the app can be used via CarPlay on the car’s Infotainment system. Maria Ventura has obvious knowledge of how to use an iPad hence no help will be needed to operate the app on CarPlay. The iPad application inherits most of the functionality from the iPhone application. The difference was the layout of the views and the introduction of some new views which is seen on the infotainment system.
Norman describes the importance of design by giving importance to well-designed objects that can easily be understood and interpreted, which makes it easier to operate than poorly designed objects. It can be diificult and frustrating to use objects that are poorly designed that prevent the user from interpretating and understanding on how to operate the object.
The user experience and the design are interlocked and very important to develop valuable applications (Svärdström, 2016).
Another analysis is about reserving a spot in her working place. She can leave few minutes late from home and can spend it with her son rather than searching for a parking spot personally.
5.2 Decisions Relating to Usability
According to Faulkner the principles of interface design are naturalness, consistency, relevance, supportiveness and flexibility. These principles aim to create an interface that is effective to facilitate the user to complete the tasks. When Faulkners principles are used, they achieve their goal and creates an effective interface that facilitates the user’s ability to complete the task.
Feedback, when the user interacts with the content of the application it is vital for the user to know what the application is doing, which actions are possible to perform and what the result of the action will be. The feedback should be delivered to the user via the visual user interface without stealing the users focus from the content. Alert is a powerful feedback that need to be handled with care, if the user is flooded with unimportant alerts they will quickly be ignored. An alert should contain important information and ideally and action attached to the important information (Svärdström, 2016).
A consistent application should adjust to people’s standards and paradigms at the moment and adapt to those to push the user experience forward.
5.3 Decisions relating to Cognitive Issues
Apple Inc says familiar situations can help the user to complete a task in the application without any introduction. A metaphor can be an action like flicking to change the page in a magazine or artworks on objects like icons to inform the user what the application can other. Metaphors are best when they help and enhance the user experience and not by imposing the limitations of either the action or object it alludes from.
The application should inform the user about consequences of a decision to minimise unexpected outcome and let the user make the decision. If the information is simple and the action is straight forward it makes it easier to know and remember the consequences from the action. If the user expects to be able to cancel an action or undo the action, if the action is potentially destructive the user expects a chance to confirm the action.
Cooper et al (2007) believes that if products are created keeping in mind the traceability of previous user actions, user behaviour and memory, there are great advantages in achieving user satisfaction and efficiency. Just like how an assistant remembers important information and personal preferences without being asked, a product that makes use of its memory is very effective.