Parking Booking Experience

One of the largest International Airports in Europe.

43M+

Annual Passengers

40+

Airlines

40K

Parking Spaces

The executive summary

This project is one of the concepts proposed for the International Airport in Europe as the Wayfinding & Arrival Confidence Optimization. To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have changed the name of the company, visual style, and any confidential information. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the company, and may differ from the current live version.

My role on this project was Lead UX Designer: I owned the research, concept, and prototype. I worked with senior stakeholders, product owner, and engineers, timeline: 3-week sprint. I ran Lean UX and used A/B testing to get a clear read on how the new concept performed against the original.

Outcomes: "Confidence" triggers increased from 0.6 to 3.4 on a standard 0–4 usability scale, comparison-view users converted 15% higher, booking completion rate increased by 18% (suggesting users felt more secure making a decision), help center load was reduced by 20% (indicating fewer users needed extra reassurance after booking).

The Challenge

Despite having detailed text directions, customers remained anxious and confused about the physical reality of their journey. There was a "confidence gap" between booking a space and actually finding it. Customers felt visually blind until they arrived. They were worried about: navigational error, logistical friction, and stress about what happens if something goes wrong at the automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) barrier itself.

The evidence that proved it

Heuristic audit flagged critical issues: reassurance content, entry method, and safety details buried behind "More Info," with no comparison view forcing users to compare options from memory
Customer reviews surfaced a disconnect between what customers remembered from the map and what they actually encountered on arrival
Persona mapping confirmed the pattern: "GPS guidance and landmark descriptions upon arrival" as an unmet need.

Customer journey mapping (CJM). The CJM made the problem structure visible. Persona’s emotional low point wasn't only at booking, but at post-confirmation, when she had a reservation but no proper plan for arrival. The map showed exactly which touchpoints were failing, and what each one needed to do instead.

Key Insights

Address Confusion: The booking flow didn't surface a direct address. Travellers called in for it, or guessed.

Feature Uncertainty: Parking information was scattered. Users had to work hard to find them.

Directions

I audited global travel hubs to understand what good looked like. Sydney and Schiphol Airports stood out. They provided a good direction what could be used at the starting point. Contextual Guidance as an Anxiety-Reduction Tool: Both hubs have moved beyond static wayfinding. They employ dynamic, real-time mapping that provides precise navigation, taking users directly from their current location to a specific parking gate, which removes the "navigation friction" that typically occurs during the final step of a journey.

I used created a plan for the optimization based on the insights and used Impact/Effort Matrix for prioritization.

Key UX Decisions

Before designing, I set the principles the work had to hold to:

Familiar patterns reduce friction. I didn’t want to make travellers learn a new interface when they're already managing travel stress.
Progressive Disclosure. I wanted to surface what's needed at each stage and hide the rest until it's relevant to keep cognitive load low.
Progressive Profiling. The wall of text on the Parking Detail Page was the most visible problem.
Operational balance. The solution had to work for Rivergate's internal systems, not just for travellers. Clean data architecture meant one source of truth across touchpoints.

The Solution and key deliverables

Parking Result Page

The result page moved the map from a decorative afterthought to a functional tool: zoomed to a usable scale, with a Smart comparison toggle surfaced directly on the card rather than buried in a separate flow. Confidence triggers were embedded in the copy itself, not behind a click.

A List/Map toggle let customers switch between a scannable list and a spatial view without losing their place. The map centered on the actual car park entrance rather than the airport as a whole.

Smart Comparison This was a 0→1 addition: no comparison mechanism existed before this project. It was the direct answer to "no comparison view," the most frequently cited friction point at the Decision stage. Rather than a static table, Smart Comparison let customers select what matters to them (total cost, distance to terminal, features) and get a focused, conversational comparison between the two options they've shortlisted.

Parking Detail Page (PDP) The PDP replaced the wall of text and the airport-wide map with a real entrance photo, a zoomed and landmark-labeled map, the exact street address, and a structured, accordion-based Parking Guide covering Arrival, Parking, Terminal Access, Exiting, and Blue Badge Holders, so customers could find exactly the step they needed without reading everything else first.

Emails (Confirmation/Reminder) Since the journey map showed anxiety peaking after checkout, the confirmation and pre-travel emails carried the same Arrival Guide as the PDP: exact address, map, the best route to take, and a QR code as a fallback if the barrier doesn't open. This met customers again at the exact moment the emotional dip occurs, rather than leaving them to dig for information alone.

The Process

I chose a hybrid, triangulated research approach rather than relying on a single method, because a "confidence gap" is emotional and situational, the kind of problem a single data source tends to under-report. Analytics alone would show where customers dropped off, but not why. Reviews alone would show frustration, but not when in the journey it peaked. Combining review analysis, a heuristic audit, persona synthesis, and journey mapping meant each method could correct for the blind spots of the others, and when three unrelated sources kept landing on the same conclusion, that convergence became the strongest evidence in the whole case study.
I also chose to prioritize with an Impact/Effort matrix rather than sequencing by however the findings happened to surface. Grounding priority in financial risk, review frequency, and journey stage, rather than ease of implementation, meant the roadmap led with trust, not polish. That's a deliberate trade-off: fixing address accuracy came before fixing the visual system, because an accurate address prevents an extra charge mistake immediately; a beautiful entrance photo doesn't, if the address underneath it is still wrong.

Impact & Results

The results of the A/B testing were the following:

"Confidence" triggers (0–4 usability scale) 0.6 → 3.4
Comparison-view users, conversion rate +15% vs. card-only users
Booking completion rate +18%
Help center load (post-booking) −20%

These outcomes were validated through A/B testing the new concept against the original live experience over a 3-week test window with 230 participants, giving a clear, comparable read on how the redesign performed rather than a directional estimate.

What I'd Do Differently

Instrument the comparison tool from day one. I'd add explicit tracking on comparison-view adoption, time-to-decision, and Consideration-stage drop-off specifically, so the feature's value could be proven with usage data, not just conversion lift alone.
Validate the Arrival Guide's post-booking placement earlier. The journey map made it clear anxiety peaks after checkout, but I'd want to usability-test the confirmation email and reminder sequence with real participants before committing to the full email redesign, rather than extending the PDP pattern by inference alone.
Run a lightweight content audit alongside the UX audit. Several inconsistencies (duplicate descriptions across product tiles, a mismatched shuttle reference on a walking-only option) surfaced only once every card was compared side by side. Catching that earlier would have kept the design and content workstreams moving in parallel instead of surfacing fixes late.