Product & branding for Spot Watch

Smart Campus Parking Experience

Industry

Park Monitoring

Client

UPRM Students

Tools

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop

Time frame

Ongoing

Spot Watch is a mobile parking solution designed to help university students and staff find parking efficiently using real-time data and predictive insights. The project was developed in collaboration with a student team participating in the Toyota Mobility Challenge, an initiative focused on improving transportation within communities.

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Projects objectives

Users lack visibility into available spaces and have no guidance where to park. Existing approaches are outdated for the amount of students attending UPRM, and other options don't focus on intended destination, making decision inefficient for users.

The goal was to design an app that helped users find parking faster, provides insight into when parking is most available, supports a destination-based mindset, and creates a seamless, all-in-one experience without relying on external tools.

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Role

I was responsible for designing the visual interface, developing the brand identity, and shaping the overall product experience based on the system’s capabilities. Contributions include from designing the brand identity, including logo exploration, refinement, and final system. Defined a clear information hierarchy for parking decisions. Shifted the UX from location-based to destination based thinking. Designed compact, scannable parking cards for quick comparison. Proposed integrated navigation within the app to avoid app switching. Added a user feedback system to improve data accuracy over time. Helped align the product with its original documented goals.

I was responsible for designing the visual interface, developing the brand identity, and shaping the overall product experience based on the system’s capabilities. Contributions include from designing the brand identity, including logo exploration, refinement, and final system. Defined a clear information hierarchy for parking decisions. Shifted the UX from location-based to destination based thinking. Designed compact, scannable parking cards for quick comparison. Proposed integrated navigation within the app to avoid app switching. Added a user feedback system to improve data accuracy over time. Helped align the product with its original documented goals.

Design Approach

The design focused on simplifying decision-making and aligning the experience with how users naturally think about parking. When thinking of picking a parking users think in terms of where they are going, not where they are. The interface reflects this by prioritizing destination-based navigation, that in turn improving usability.

Parking options are presented as compact cards in a vertical list, allowing users to quickly compare availability, distance to destination and real-time status. To go beyond real-time data, predictive insights were introduced to show parking trends over time, helping users choose optimal parking times.

The experience was designed in mind to be seamless, something that could allow users to find parking, navigate to it, and park within the same app. Once parked, the system detects occupancy automatically using camera data, reducing the need for manual input. Feed back is later collected to verify data.

The design focused on simplifying decision-making and aligning the experience with how users naturally think about parking. When thinking of picking a parking users think in terms of where they are going, not where they are. The interface reflects this by prioritizing destination-based navigation, that in turn improving usability.

Parking options are presented as compact cards in a vertical list, allowing users to quickly compare availability, distance to destination and real-time status. To go beyond real-time data, predictive insights were introduced to show parking trends over time, helping users choose optimal parking times.

The experience was designed in mind to be seamless, something that could allow users to find parking, navigate to it, and park within the same app. Once parked, the system detects occupancy automatically using camera data, reducing the need for manual input. Feed back is later collected to verify data.

Impact

Established a clear product direction for future development. Created a scalable system adaptable to other campuses. The project is currently awaiting full development integration as the team transitions into the next production phase.

Constraints

Despite these constraints, the design was structured to be scalable and ready for future implementation.

• Cross work with a distributed student team
• Leadership & permit issues for testing.
• Limited time data integration at the design stage.
• Project development ongoing post-graduation.

Logo & Design

In addition to the product experience, I developed the visual identity for Spot Watch to reinforce clarity, structure, and reliability.The logo combines typography with an embedded icon, reflecting both the concept of parking and system monitoring. The design emphasizes strong geometry, straight lines, and structured forms to communicate order and precision—key qualities for a system users depend on when making quick decisions.

The visual language was intentionally minimal and functional, aligning with the goal of reducing cognitive load. Every design choice supports the idea that users should be able to quickly understand where to go and trust the system’s guidance.

The branding extends into the UI through consistent use of spacing, hierarchy, and clean components, creating a cohesive experience between identity and interaction.

  • Clients Webcite

    Clients Webcite

  • Generated Mobile Mock up

    Generated Mobile Mock up

  • Car example

    Car example

  • Final Logo

    Final Logo

  • Logo variants

    Logo variants

  • Past logos

    Past logos

Moving Forward

Next steps include integrating real-time data from camera systems, validating predictive models with user behavior, conducting usability testing on campus, and expanding features based on user feedback. This project highlighted the importance of bridging the gap between technical systems and user experience. By reframing the problem around user behavior and decision-making, I was able to transform a functional concept into a more intuitive and scalable product.

Moving Forward

Next steps include integrating real-time data from camera systems, validating predictive models with user behavior, conducting usability testing on campus, and expanding features based on user feedback. This project highlighted the importance of bridging the gap between technical systems and user experience. By reframing the problem around user behavior and decision-making, I was able to transform a functional concept into a more intuitive and scalable product.