Case study · Contextual Inquiry & Mobile App Design · 5 min read
University Parking Lot Ethnographic Study
Researching the lived experience of parking where students, athletes, and spectators compete daily for the same limited spaces, and designing a smarter way through it.
Role
UX Researcher
Method
Field observation + interviews
Outcome
Smart parking app concept
Problem statement
One parking structure, three groups, zero coordination.
Santa Clara University’s main parking structure sits at a three-way intersection shared by the soccer field, beach volleyball practice courts, and the primary pedestrian walkway to campus. On any given afternoon, the same compact structure serves commuter students rushing to class, student athletes arriving for practice, and parents and fans showing up for games, all with zero coordination between them.
The result is a daily negotiation of space that nobody wins cleanly. Spots disappear without warning, walkways become bottlenecks, and the emotional cost of parking bleeds into the rest of the day. This research set out to understand why that friction persists, and what a smarter parking experience could look like.
No real-time visibility
Users discover floor occupancy only after they’ve already driven inside the structure, with no information before entry.
No priority system
Students, athletes, and spectators all compete for the same unzoned spots regardless of urgency, schedule, or affiliation.
Shared bottleneck walkway
A narrow path funnels two parking lots’ worth of foot traffic past an active volleyball court and soccer field.
My role
UX Researcher.
Field observation, contextual interviews, and the concept for an information-first parking app.
Course: IN4MATX 281, User Needs Analysis, UCI MHCID. Location: Santa Clara University, CA. Tools: Figma, field notes, interview transcripts.
Problem and solution
Problem: Nobody knows the lot is full until they’re already inside it.
Every interviewee described the same ritual: enter the structure, find floor 1 full, climb to floor 2, hope for floor 3. There is no signal before entry that tells you whether it’s worth going in at all.
Solution: Information before arrival.
The research pointed to one consistent gap. We prototyped an AI-informed smart parking app that surfaces occupancy, predicts availability from event schedules, and routes users before they ever enter the structure.
Research
Watching first, then asking.
Each method was chosen to get closer to the real emotional experience of parking, not just the logistics, but the friction, the frustration, and the workarounds people build into their day.
Field observation
Field notes, 1 session, 2+ hours
Before talking to anyone, we needed to watch. Sitting at the intersection of the volleyball courts, soccer field, and parking structure for a full afternoon revealed behaviors no interview could surface, like the honk of a stolen spot and the student who turned around rather than fight for a space.
Contextual interviews
In-person, 3 participants
Interviewed three distinct user types, a parent and spectator, a commuter student, and a student athlete, because each group experiences the same parking structure completely differently.
Prototyping
Figma, hi-fi prototype
Research findings pointed to a clear opportunity: what if the app could tell you the parking situation before you even arrived? We prototyped an AI-informed smart parking app around that idea.
Key insights
What the research revealed.
Three interviews and one field session told the same story from different angles. The parking problem wasn’t really about spots. It was about information, fairness, and the invisible cost of uncertainty.
Nobody knows the lot is full until they’re already inside it
3 of 3 · participants described floor-by-floor discovery
There is no signal before entry, no display, no app, no signage, that tells you whether it’s worth going in at all. The field observation captured this in real time: a prolonged honk followed by a car speeding out in frustration, someone who had driven all the way to a spot only to have it taken.
“I came into the parking lot, had to scan my payment. The first lot was entirely full, so I had to come up to the second lot.” — Spectator, Interview 1
The lot serves three competing groups with no priority system
0 · designated zones for students vs. spectators
Commuter students, student athletes, and game-day spectators all share the same unzoned structure with no separation or priority. The field observation confirmed spectators use the structure even on non-game days, quietly occupying spaces that students need.
“Zone it off. I want there to be more of an understanding that this lot should be priority for people who need to get to class.” — Commuter student, Interview 2
Parking frustration is emotional, not just logistical
Every participant described parking as something that affected their mood before it affected their schedule. The student athlete in Interview 3, who initially described his experience as generally positive, slowly revised mid-interview. The anxiety is pre-arrival: people already anticipate the fight before they even turn in.
“It kind of influences my day. I mean, only for like that brief little bit that I park, but the general experience when I’m trying to find a parking space is like pretty bad.” — Commuter student, Interview 2
The walkway is a shared bottleneck everyone resents but can’t avoid
The narrow path connecting the two parking lots through the volleyball and soccer area is the only efficient route to the library and core academic buildings, so despite the congestion, people are trapped using it. A smarter parking app that reroutes users to less congested entry points could reduce the chokepoint without requiring any infrastructure change.
“This sidewalk just has to be bigger. You kind of just bump into shoulders with everyone to class and it’s just really awkward.” — Student athlete, Interview 3
Perceived availability is shrinking, even regulars feel it
The most striking observation from the field session came from a spectator who attends every week. This was someone who had normalized the situation and was still noticing decay. Combined with increasing athletic programming and commuter enrollment, the felt experience is what drives behavior, whether or not raw capacity has actually changed.
“Yeah every week I come by and somehow I feel each week there’s less and less parking.” — Spectator, field observation
Prototypes
An information-first fix.
The research pointed to one consistent gap: information before arrival. Users were making blind decisions. The prototype addresses this with an AI-informed smart parking app that surfaces occupancy, predicts availability based on event schedules, and routes users before they ever enter the structure.
Real-time occupancy
Live floor-by-floor availability displayed before entry, eliminating the discovery loop every participant described.
Event-aware warnings
The app reads the athletic schedule and flags game days and practice sessions in advance, letting commuters plan alternate routes.
Smart lot routing
When the primary structure is near capacity, the app suggests the next closest lot with available spots and estimated walk time.
Full interactive prototype. Click through it below.
Next steps
A social and spatial equity problem.
The parking structure isn’t just a logistics problem, it’s a social and spatial equity problem. The same space is being asked to serve groups with fundamentally different urgencies, with no system for mediating between them.
Short term
• Deploy a real-time lot occupancy display at the garage entrance.
• Add event-day alerts to the university mobile app.
• Post signage directing spectators to the secondary lot during game days.
Medium term
• Pilot a soft-zoning system with time-based student priority during class hours.
• Integrate the athletic event calendar into parking guidance routing.
• Widen or re-route the shared pedestrian walkway between lots.
Long term
• Build out the AI smart transportation app for campus-wide deployment.
• Establish dynamic pricing or permit tiers to encourage off-peak arrivals.
• Partner with transit systems to reduce single-occupancy commuter demand.
What I Learned
This project reinforced something I believe strongly as a researcher: the most valuable data doesn’t come from the script. The moments that shaped this case study most, the student athlete slowly realizing mid-interview that he is actually annoyed, the spontaneous honk and screech of tires from inside the structure, the spectator offhandedly mentioning the parking feels like it’s gotten worse every week, none of those were planned questions. They were byproducts of showing up, being present, and staying curious.
If I were to extend this research, I would observe at different times of day, morning and evening, and on non-event days to understand whether the congestion is tied to programming or baked into the structure’s baseline capacity. I’d also want to interview more student athletes. As regular users with a unique relationship to both the practice spaces and the parking, their perspective was underrepresented in this round.
Next step
Let’s work together.
I’m looking for my next product design role. If this work is the kind you need, I’d love to talk.