University of Washington Transportation Services

Usability Case Study of the Student/Staff Parking Portal

The University of Washington Transportation Services Customer Portal is a browser-based online interface that enables UW staff, students, and guests to purchase short-term or long-term parking permits and to pay for on-campus parking citations.

This usability study prompted exploration of the short-term-parking-related features of the interface by presenting a scenario requiring a single-use permit purchase for a future date. Tasks were representative of typical interactions expected from a user during a single-use (Daily, Night) parking permit purchase and encouraged interface exploration. The goal of the study was to discover what usability issues students and staff faced when trying to use the Transportation Services Customer Portal for this purpose and related purposes, and to assess overall user satisfaction with the interface.

My role: This usability study was conducted in a three-person team as part of the Human Centered Design and Engineering graduate studies program at University of Washington (HCDE 517) between January 2022 and March 2023. I proposed conducting a study of the online parking portal because I had experienced difficulty with it as a new user in Fall term, 2022, and discovered that other students experienced similar challenges. My contributions to this project included Project Management, creation of Key Tasks and Scenarios, generation of Usability Test Plan and related documents including: facilitator script, pre-test questionnaire, customized System Usability Scale, and data logging sheets, test facilitation and note taking, study results analysis, final presentation design, and copywriting for study results report.

Impact: Through conducting a Moderated Usability Study with six participants, we identified findings that indicated key areas for improvement in the UW Transportation Services online parking portal. Participants gave clear feedback on their challenges and successes, which led to the generation of an impactful findings presentation and report, which was shared with the head of Transportation Services. At this time, a meeting has been proposed between my team and key stakeholders at UW Transportation Services to review findings and create a plan for user improvements.

Problem Statement

Why pick the parking portal? As members of a University of Washington graduate program, our team was comprised of adults working day jobs with an evening campus commute — that made us personally familiar with usability issues faced by students purchasing single-use permits via the online interface. By enlisting the participation of our fellow students and UW staff, we aimed to gain a better understanding of the issues individuals faced when navigating the portal to purchase single-use permits (and completing related tasks).

Using the performance and preference data collected in this study, we were able to determine multiple Areas of Success and Areas for Improvement in the interface, ranked by severity. Ultimately, our hope is that the findings of this study will be utilized by the Transportation Services department to establish a baseline for user satisfaction that can be used in future evaluations and improvements.

Research Questions

This study focused on answering two (2) research questions:

  1. What are the main usability issues students face when trying to buy a parking permit through the parking customer portal?

  2. How satisfied are people with the customer parking portal overall?

Study Summary

  • Participants

    Initially, the intent of this study was to collect data from a total of eight participants in two test groups: Four novice student users and four experienced student users.

    The requisite criteria were that participants must:

    • Currently be enrolled as student at the University of Washington

    • Have a valid driver’s license and access to a vehicle

    Ultimately, we chose to recruit from a larger pool, including UW staff (who use the same portal), and opened our study to any members of the University of Washington community and expanded our initial criteria to include staff members.

    STUDY SCREENER

  • Methods

    This usability study was administered to six individual participants as a Moderated Usability Test. We studied six individuals: Four UW students and two UW staff, all users with prior experience. The study was conducted with two remote and four in-person, one-hour sessions. During sessions, participants completed eight tasks designed to explore any usability issues faced when purchasing single-use parking permits and rated the difficulty of these tasks in a Single-Ease Question (SEQ). Participants also completed pre-test demographic and preference surveys and a post-test System Usability Scale Questionnaire.

    USABILITY TEST KIT

  • Data Collected

    Data collected from the study included participant demographic and preference information, navigation path, task success rating, error type and severity rating, Single-Ease Question answers, System Usability Scale data, and an overall satisfaction debrief.

    Data analysis indicates that while participants were largely successful at the task of purchasing single-use parking permits, they experienced significant challenges interpreting information presented in the interface (permit and lot types), the amount of time and steps required by a purchase, a general lack of saved payment and preference information, and difficulty accessing help or guidance. Five of six participants rated the central task of purchasing a single-use parking permit as difficult or very difficult.

    RESULTS TABLES

Findings: What worked well?

  • 3 of 6 participants reported satisfaction that the interface offered access to parking at lower rates.

  • 4 of 6 participants rated adding a new vehicle to their account as easy or very easy (a 5th said "neither easy nor difficult")

  • 5 of 6 participants found records of prior permit purchases easily or very easily (a 6th said it was "neither easy nor difficult")

  • 4 of 6 participants ranked confirming the details of their permit in the cart and purchasing cart contents as easy or very easy

System Usability Score

In general, participant satisfaction with the interface was low, as reflected in the average System Usability Score rating of 29.4, which correlates to a letter grade of “F” and a rating of “Awful” in comparison to a passing score of 68/100.

Findings: What Needs Improvement?

INFORMATION ORGANIZATION

  • 5 of 6 participants disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "I found the various functions of this interface were well-organized" in the SUS Questionnaire

  • 5 of 6 participants rated the central task of reserving parking as difficult or very difficult on the SEQ

  • 6 of 6 participants had difficulty identifying and selecting a convenient parking lot using the lot list and reference maps

Recommendations:

  1. Use filters and sorting for permit, lots, date selection. Interactive filter and sort options enable intuitive choices while interpreting large data sets

  2. Integrate an Interactive Map. All 6 study participants expressed a desire for a more easily searchable map to increase lot discoverability

REDUNDANT STEPS & INPUTS

  • 4 of 6 participants commented on the high number of steps required to book a parking permit

  • 3 of 6 participants noted specifically that content within these steps/pages was repetitive

  • 6 of 6 participants remarked that they were required to select payment type multiple times

Recommendations:

  1. Reduce Redundant Fields. Eliminate places where users need to input the same data twice to streamline workflow

  2. Reduce Redundant Steps. Consolidate steps and interstitial pages requiring users to review similar information

SAVED USER DATA & PREFERENCES

  • 4 of 6 participants agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "I thought there was too much inconsistency in this interface" in the SUS Questionnaire

  • 4 of 6 participants noted they cannot save payment information for future use or use quick-pay options

  • 5 of 6 participants expressed the desire for the interface to remember common selections as shortcuts

Recommendations:

  1. Allow Shortcuts with Frequently-Used Selections. Enable users to save frequent permit/lot/vehicle combinations for future use

  2. Enable Payment Shortcuts and Autopay Methods. Integrate options for saving financial information or payment shortcuts

HELP & GUIDANCE

  • 5 of 6 participants disagreed or strongly disagreed that the interface provided sufficient help or supportive information

  • 6 of 6 participants could not locate information on how to cancel a parking permit and rated the task difficult or very difficult

  • 4 of 6 participants abandoned rather than seeking help and said they would pay a higher rate or park without paying rather than asking for help

Recommendations:

  1. Place Help Options Prominently. Feature helpful resources in a more visible location

  2. Use Clear Tooltips Throughout Interface. Supplement current tooltips with clear references, resources, hints and guidance

Participant Quotes

  • “[The] campus map is huge and hard to read [and] lots are not always clearly labeled.” (P5)

  • “It takes double the amount of time it should.” (P3)

  • “It’s just really time consuming. [...] Inputting everything over and over is cumbersome. [...] Saving most-favorite lots and permits so you could one-click purchase it [would be helpful].” (P1)

  • “Why can’t I change this online? — If I can’t, tell me why!” (P4)

  • “[There are] 20 clicks/steps for one part, could take 2 or 3.” (P1)

  • “The lots list is not alphabetical or organized and the link to a map takes you to a separate tab. Then [you] have to remember what lot you want from the map and need to navigate the dropdown to find it” (P2)

Further Recommendations

A COMPARISON WITH THE PAY-BY-PHONE APP

6 of 6 participants indicated a preference for using the Pay-by-Phone mobile app to pay for on-campus parking due to its ease of use (few steps, saved user data, mobile- friendly, fast) despite a higher price point and access to fewer lots.

The recommendations of this team in this presentation and report will enable Transportation Services to create a more competitive interface and ensure greater market share.

Next steps include a meeting with all stakeholders to discuss recommendations and feasibility.

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