Park Plus - Revolutionary Start - Flop on Progress

The great minds behind park plus capitalized on the available technology and infrastructure.

Unfortunately the progress has been quite underwhelming, mainly as a result of the Calgary Parking Authorities choice of app developer.

An in house solution appears to be ineffective. May the app reviews be an indication that an external and experienced developer is needed to build a robust and well designed app from the ground up.

A suggestion for the first interview question might be: What was your favorite session from WWDC 2015, and were there any sessions that could directly benefit building our app?

Good luck on your next build.

Edit: looks like they still have the same team on bored. So I have written them an email. Here is the open letter:

Parking App:

(First terrible decision) Front page is based on a website insert. This is lazy and a terrible user experience.

You can scroll above and below the content revealing a blank space (terrible)

The Calgary Parking logo is not optimized for retina displays (aka every iPhone this app supports)

You can click the logo which takes you to the main website with no method to return. (All falls back to the first terrible decision.

There is a "note: your park plus account…" info drop down under the login page. In here you are given phone numbers and emails to contact support but (as a result of the first terrible decision) you are unable to click the numbers or emails as the expandable paragraph simply collapses rather than being prompted to call - or opening up my mail program to compose an email.

Remember username vs auto sign-in. Just make the buttons the same size.

Login button - the pop over (which i will touch on again shortly) floods the screens with a big red banner which uses green text. You are not writing a novelty letter to Santa Claus so use fonts that those who perhaps have limited vision or are perhaps colour blind wont have troubles viewing.

Create an account - this takes us over to a new website which is not optimized for mobile. From here there are no options to return the previous page. But before that - you are met with nothing other than A POP UP. The popup will go away on its own - but only after 60 seconds. 60!? Why the popup in the first place takes us back to the first terrible decision. Had this actually been a properly built app - if you were unable to build a new account creation page, you could just opt for the use of a build in browser (Safari View Controller). It would offer: forward and back buttons, a done button to return to the app, the ability to auto complete the form, and the ability to populate saved passwords if needed.

When done signing up you are still trapped on a website with no access to the rest of the app. To resolve this - you are assuming users are aware of how to force quit an application. This task is designed to be used only when an app is no longer responding or when the phone has insufficient memory. But as a large number of Calgary drivers may not be aware of this - their only solution would be to restart there phone. Think about that - you have inconvenienced your user so much that they have to power off their phone and wait while it turns back on. All of which is a result of the first terrible decision.

Forgot password and username are of course pop ups again. But at least when you fill the forms out you should be able to close the popup and return to the main page so you can now login with your newly retrieved info - oh wait, you cant. For some foolish reason you are redirected to a different website (again not mobile ready) with no method of returning to the previous screen. So those unaware users are faced with the need to restart their phones again. This all stems back to the first terrible decision.

The privacy policy footer is not aligned correctly and collides with the edge of this visible area. Again if you happen to click it: not a mobile friendly site nor can you return to the main page.

In case you really cant add this all up and you think the solution is to add a back button of sorts — it isnt. You need to build an application. You need a page within the application to tell you about the privacy policy. You need a page in the app to sign up.

Once you are logged in - I find you are faced with too many of the warning dialogues with their lovely red background and green text. These however dont go away unless you are able to click another link.

The ability to find available parking could be such an great experience on mobile and instead is a terrible compressed mobile site.

Lastly (for now) the app icon. Clearly your team has lots of work to do (just start again - dont bother trying to fix this one). So an easy fix would be to upload the original app icon as it follows normal sizing for a graphic. Your oversized logo that touches all of the sides is like raising your flag upside down. It shows inexperience and is a clear indication of what the user should expect within: something your team should be embarrassed of.

the white box. about MyParking, v1.0.05