ProdataKey Facility Access Mobile App

Project Overview

One of my core projects while contracting for Extra Space Storage was a mobile app designed to allow customers to open facility gates and doors and unlock their Bluetooth-equipped units with their phones.

The initial concepts were hammered out in a five-day design sprint based on the book Sprint by Jake Knapp, including an interactive prototype I created from scratch in one day. After further exploration of user needs and feedback from user testing refined the UI and expanded the scope to include a “manager” version that provided at-a-glance info about a facility manager’s customers and the state of their rentals.

Project Details

Research & Initial Wireframes and Sketches

I conducted user research to understand primary use cases and security concerns and used the that information to draft initial sketches and wireframes.

This process not only led to the basic layout, but small interactions and UI elements such as a “loading” bar to gracefully accommodate latency between app interactions and phsycial responses and to prevent accidnetal activations. It also uncovered the need for iconography to represent the many different possible states a door could be in (e.g., open vs. closed, locked vs. unlocked, accessible vs. inaccessible) and the creation of a custom icon set to accommodate all of these states.

Prototype

Based on my research and design exploration, I created a testable prototype using Bootstrap 4 for structure and basic interactions. It was eventually used as the basis for the MVP version of the app.

The prototype allows a facility manager to see all doors connected to the system, as well as “favorite” frequently used doors to save time.

The design struck a balance between quickly delivering a functional app while still offering flexibility to account for features that may be added in the future.

Impact

The PDK Access app is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.