The segment of people I am focusing on is University of
Florida students who travel to campus each day for their classes and other obligations
and need a place to park their car or scooter in a timely and convenient manner.
The three people that I interviewed include two current
students and one recent graduate from the last spring semester. At first, I was
unsure whether I could include the recent graduate, as his graduation may imply
that he no longer has this need. However, he said that he still frequents
campus to see people and participate in Intramural sports at Southwest Rec Center
because he bought an alumni membership. He said that since his graduation, he
still has problems with parking on campus because he no longer has a decal that
he can use to even park on the outskirts of campus. He noted that one of the
only places to park on campus that are truly available to anyone is the Reitz
garage, and it is not very close to Southwest Rec and is usually very full. He said
that the first thing he does when he knows he is going to campus and wont be
able to park is to see if he can carpool with a friend that is also going to
play intramurals but has a UF decal since they have not graduated.
The other two people face this problem differently and more
severely. These people are faced with parking on campus every day to get to classes.
One thing I found interesting was that one of the people I interviewed said
that if she knows she is going to struggle to find parking, she takes the bus, which
bothers her because she pays a lot of money to have a parking decal on campus. However,
she does not have a better option because she does not want to risk being late
to her obligations if she cannot find parking. Another interesting thing that
came up in the interview process is that one person said that when they cannot
find parking, they ask their older brother where they might be able to find
parking or a parking lot that has lifted their restrictions because her brother
has more experience with UF campus parking than she does.
I think this segment is certainly aware that they have the
need, however I do not think their information search methods are all that
reliable. For example, asking a friend or sibling for advice on where to park
may work sometimes, but it is definitely not guaranteed to work and in a time
sensitive situation it would not be the ideal method of finding a solution.
Caroline,
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a good job with your interviews in the fact that you were able to gather all of this information from them. I also thought that it was interesting that you saw that some of your interviews had already thought of an alternative of this problem which was using the bus which will tell you that your product needs to be more helpful than the bus system we have. I think your interviewers gave you a lot of information to go over and think about for your opportunity.