
Role
Product Design Intern
Duration
3 months
Tool
Figma
PhotoShop
UserBrain
Team
2 Product Managers, 4 Product Designers, 1 UX Researcher, 2 Engineers
📋INTERNSHIP OVERVIEW
ParkWhiz
During summer 2022, I interned at FlashParking, Inc where I work as a product designer to concept design the EV charging features for ParkWhiz app and its related web-clip.
I had an amazing experience working on various projects throughout the 3 months. My skills in research, design, presentation, communication and leadership were greatly boosted by working with a supportive and creative team.
01.
User Research
Lead user-centered research to create user flows for both on-demand and scheduled EV charging services
02.
Design
Design a clear price structure that allows to display cost in 3 formats and will show before sign-in, and set up a foundation for dynamic pricing
RESPONSIBILITIES
What I focus on...
03.
Concept Design
Integrate EV charging feature for ParkWhiz without disrupting existing parking reservation flow
04.
Work Cross Functionally
Communicate the product features with PMs, engineers and other designers frequently, and help align ideas during Design Crit and Workshop


As charging is a must-have service for EV drivers, a feature allowing users to book and pay for EV charging spots is decided to be added in the ParkWhiz app and website.
PROBLEM KICK OFF
EV Charge Pricing Structure is Much More Complex Than Gas
02.
No Standard Charging Policy Across States
Charging policy varies depending on state laws. Electricity has to be priced either per kWh or per minute(eg. $0.24/kWh or $0.12 /min).
01.
Not Intuitive for Users to Understand
EV drivers are experiencing overcharged issues for lack of clarity in pricing when they use some public charging stations. They need to do some math:(


CHALLENGE
How to inform a clear pricing policy and ensure EV drivers understand it before sign-in and checkout?
CHALLENGE
How to inform a clear pricing policy and ensure EV drivers understand it before sign-in on the web-clip?


DESIGN PROCESS

TAKEAWAYS
What I learn from...
01.
How to communicate effectively? How to make everyone understand?To be a good designer, I will say communication is a must lesson we have to learn. During this experience, I found if you want to propose some ideas, it's always better to prepare materials ahead, such as data, graphs, sketch, etc. Then just visualize them in a way that ready to be reviewed! I believe this way allows your team to be more comfortable to follow and consider your thoughts carefully.
Visualization helps communicate ideas
02.
As majority of my work is relevant with B2C products and rebranding, I also actively took other factors such as business interest, product strategy, budget and resources, and engineer feasibilities to help design successful solutions. In addition to this, I understand in practice design methodologies could be different from those being taught in school, and ste should support to solve the real-life product problems
Think beyond design
03.
This internship gives me much opportunities to practice my presentation skills and grow my leadership. Through several practices in design crits, I realized obscure language will let team get confused, so I should be more straightforward and organized. Since then I kept practicing reporting my daily progress. At the end, I can even hosting design workshops individually, which is challenging to speak in front of so many senior designers, but I am excited to hear that I am doing a good job to lead a big team.
Good presentation makes people easy to follow
04.
I enjoyed spending time with other designers, PMs and engineers to discuss ideas, hear the feedback and create new things together. I appreciate they are super supportive though they are much more experienced than me. So when I was not confident about something, I was told just don't hesitate to ask my colleagues. They are always good people to learn skills from.
Trust my team, Just ask
Other Works
🏆 Best Interaction Design (Oculus)
🚗 Find your car smartly w/o internet
🌱Plant to compose your music