Executive Summary
Partnered with Lime to address untidy scooter parking in free-floating markets, I led generative research and stakeholder alignment to design a scalable, rewards-based solution that promotes tidy parking while advancing Lime’s business and city partnership goals.
Sponsor
Timeline
Mar 2025-Jul 2025 (4 months)
Team
(Me) UX Designer + Project Manager
1 Lime UX Design Manager
1 Lime Product Manager
1 Lime Industrial Design Manager
1 UX Designer
1 UX Designer
My Impact
Led key design efforts in a 6-month sponsored project with Lime to reduce untidy parking in free-floating markets.
Drove alignment across stakeholders by framing compliance as a business lever tied to city contracts and brand trust.
Generated 60+ ideas, delivering a reward-based system that balanced rider motivation with operational efficiency.
Ran 3 design sprints, conducted 14 user tests, and delivered 10+ iterations across flows, logic, and UI clarity.
Validated strong ROI: a $3.50 reward generated ~$45 in revenue—proving scalable business impact.
Co-led workshops to align success metrics, shaping Lime’s parking compliance vision and long-term strategy.
Highlights
How might we encourage tidy parking behavior in a free-floating market that supports intuitive and compliant parking behavior at scale?
Problem
Lime faced a challenge with untidy scooter parking in free-floating markets—hurting brand trust, driving city complaints, and increasing business costs.
Solution
A Reward-System that gave riders points for tidy parking, redeemable for free-ride minutes and exclusive merch.
Points rewarded for:
1. Aligning vehicles parallel to others
2. Parking in a bike rack
3. Picking up fallen Lime vehicles
Impact
⭐ Secured a partnership with Lime to tackle a critical parking compliance issue tied to city regulations, rider behavior, and operational costs.
⭐ Modeled business value by showing that a $3.50 rider reward could drive ~$45 in revenue—proving the ROI of incentive-based behavior change.
⭐ Validated the reward system through 3 design sprints and 14 user tests, enabling Lime to confidently explore broader use cases.
⭐ Delivered high-fidelity design concepts and UX recommendations that Lime could repurpose for future product exploration and internal alignment.
BACKGROUND
Problem Context
Lime is a micromobility service that offers electric scooters and bikes. This project addresses Lime scooter Parking Behavior Issues in Seattle.
Tidy parking issue impacted Lime’s brand image cost, operational costs, and city compliance fees.
113%
📊 YoY Rider Growth in Seattle (since 2024)
~$240,000+
💰 Annual Operations Cost/city to clean untidy Lime parking(est.)
~$6,400/year
🏙️ Seattle City Fines from 8% mispark rate (2021)
Within Lime, there are two types of parking markets and we chose Free-floating parking market.
🛴 Free-floating Parking
Users can park wherever they want.
🅿️ Mandatory Parking
Users have to park at a designated parking zone.
Why choose Free-floating?
💡
Broader Market Impact - Over 70% of Lime’s markets include free-floating models.
💡
Greater Design Opportunity - Free-floating markets open space for deeper behavior-driven insights.
RESEARCH
Turning User Research into Real Impact for Lime
My Impact
Created a user-study testing guide that effecitvely uncovered user behaviours.
Led synthesis workshop after moderating 2 of 5 interviews, driving the key design directions.
Led 1 of 3 user activity workshops, uncovering key behavior patterns that informed design priorities.
Led a heuristic review of Lime’s app, identifying friction points that shaped our design strategy
Round 1 - Generative Research
This project began as a graduate research initiative to investigate rider behavior and uncover why existing solutions have failed to address Lime’s scooter parking issues. Over two weeks, I conducted generative research using five distinct methodologies to surface key behavioral insights.
(**View the detailed Generative Research report)
Total: Five Research Methods (n=31)
🎤 27 man-on-the-street interviews with regular Lime riders (2 days)
🧠 5 follow-up semi-structured interviews to dive deeper into behaviors
🤝 Stakeholder interviews with Lime to understand existing solutions
Round 2 - Additional Research
While our generative research and stakeholder input provided a foundational understanding of rider parking behavior, we identified a gap in data specific to free-floating markets. To address this, I led an in-depth activity-based workshop and conducted a heuristic evaluation of the current Lime app.
The Activity-based Workshop
3 Activities
🗺️ Scenario Mapping
Participants used paper scooters to simulate parking in 3 mapped scenarios.
👀 Bike Rack Scenarios
Participants viewed 3 bike rack scenes and described their parking choices.
🛴Tidy Parking + Interview
Participants defined “tidy parking” and judged sample scenes, followed by an interview.
3 Participants
Regular Lime riders
2-4 rides/week
scooters & bikes
The research led us to these key findings about free-floating parking behavior:
Riders don’t park to be tidy—they park to be done.
“I don't actually have too much of an interest in tidy parking, good parking, safe parking. My interest is more like in efficient parking.”
- P3 (workshop activity)
Lime's photo system for ending rides isn't motivating users to park correctly and is viewed as ineffective.
“I've sort of realized that no one's looking at these images, and no one's ever gonna get me in trouble... most of the times now I'll walk into class first before taking the photo.”
- P5 (Semi-Structured Interview)
The ride ends, but the end-ride experience doesn’t stick.
Heuristic Evaluation of Lime’s Current End-of-Ride Summary
I used these insights to pitch the research to a Lime stakeholder, leading to securing a sponsored collaboration.
➡️Next step: Align on the core problem space with Lime stakeholders — grounded in business priorities and current market strategy.
ALIGNMENT
Problem Alignment with the Stakeholder
To align my understanding of the problem space, I engaged with Lime stakeholders to gather insights into their north star, key business challenges, solution strategies, prior research, and known constraints.
This strategic alignment helped me to synthesize the information and uncover a core tension between Lime’s business goals and user needs.
My Impact
Drafted key alignment questions to clarify Lime’s goals, constraints, and compliance needs, building trust and alignment with stakeholders early on.
Co-led a synthesis workshop to align on business goals, constraints, and the product north star—clarifying design priorities and strategic focus.
Opportunity: Conflict between Business Goals v. User Needs
There was a clear conflict between Lime's business goal and user needs: while Lime prioritizes tidy, compliant parking behavior, riders prioritize quick and convenient parking.
Conflict
Business Goals v. User Needs
Key Rider Needs
Lime’s North Star
Business Goals
→ Convenience and Proximity.
→ Need for Transparency and Control.
→ Clarity on tidy parking definition.
→ Simplify Rider Experience.
→ Design globally, adapt locally.
→ Scale through smart technology.
→ Tidy Parking Compliance.
→ Reducing Labor Costs.
→ Improving Relationship with the City
→ Stand out in a Competitive Market.
🚩The Final Direction
How might we:
✅ Encourage tidy parking behavior
✅ Support scalable compliance across Lime’s global markets
Design Goals
🛴
Encourage tidy and compliant parking in free-floating environments.
⚡
Experience should be simple, low-effort, and fast.
😊
Riders should feel confident about where and how to park.
🎉
End rides with a satisfying 'peak-end' moment (immediate and meaningful) to encourage repeating behaviour.
➡️Next step: Use these insights to ideate design solutions aligned with our defined direction.
IDEATION
Ideation by Key Journey Touchpoints
My Impact
Led 1 of 3 user activity workshops, uncovering key behavior patterns that informed design priorities.
Led a heuristic review of Lime’s app, identifying friction points that shaped our design strategy
Based on insights from our research, I facilitated a design ideation workshop centered on three key moments in the rider journey: Pre-Ride, During Ride, and Post-Ride.
As a result, we explored 60+ different ideas and design concepts.
Diverging - Ideation Design workshop.
🍭Tip: Candy during ideation makes you more creative🍬
We also mapped the full Lime rider journey to understand every touchpoint. This revealed key misalignments between rider needs and Lime’s goals within the journey —highlighting key opportunities that shaped our design focus and guided concept direction.
➡️Next step: Narrow down ideas through a convergent process using our design principles and Lime’s business goals as our criteria.
FINAL CONCEPT
From 60+ Concepts to One Business-Aligned Solution
Reward System for Tidy Parking
Why the Reward System?
🚀
Scalable Across Vehicles & Behaviors
Works with current and future fleet—no new hardware required. Designed to scale across multiple rider actions, driving long-term ROI with minimal overhead.
⚡
High-Impact, Short-Term Rollout
While we evaluated multi-modal approaches, we prioritized the reward system as a high-leverage, short-term business strategy—ready for rapid rollout to drive early ROI, ideal for fast iteration and measurable early wins.
🛴
Maintains Rider Flexibility in Free-Floating Market
Riders can continue to park anywhere within the free-floating zone, preserving the convenience that drives adoption—while still being nudged toward compliant behavior.
🌟
Drives Habit Formation at Scale
Positive rewards motivate riders to park responsibly, making good behavior feel valued and repeatable.
3 Criteria for Rewarded Tidy Parking - Going Beyond Expectation
We focused on rewarding actions that go above the minimum requirement, not the standard expectation.
🍋🟩Lime's Current Parking Rule
Park the vehicle upright.
Park it out of the way of pedestrians and other road users.
🔴Our Proposed Three Criteria
1) Parking aligned and parallel to other Lime vehicles
2) Parking in bike racks
3) Picking up fallen Lime Vehicles
How will this be done? - Leveraging Lime’s tech, Captur AI & Vehicle Sensor
To ensure feasibility, the solution leverages existing technologies—Captur AI and vehicle sensors—to accurately recognize tidy parking behaviors.
This approach maximizes current resources, minimizes additional costs, and optimizes the user experience that does not disruptive its flow.
Captur AI, an image-based computer vision, can detect bike racks and aligned vehicles for tidy parking evaluation.
Lime vehicle sensors automatically detect when a vehicle is picked up.
➡️Next step: Translate the concept into high-fidelity UX designs.
FINAL DESIGN
Bringing It All Together: 4 Flows, 1 Unified System
My Impact
Built components for Lime’s design system, enhancing UI clarity.
Designed core screen variations and components across all primary user flow, shaping the end-to-end user experience.
Owned the end-to-end design of the Pick-Up Lime flow, which improved usability and aligned the experience with operational constraints.
The final solution had 4 primary user flows that corresponded to the 4 primary user goals.
ITERATION
Iterating at Speed: 3 Sprints, 14 Tests, and 10+ Design Refinements
For our design solution, I conducted three design sprints over three weeks, iterating based on user testing insights and aligned stakeholder feedback that matched Lime's business goals and users need. In total, we made 10+ design iterations across various aspects of the solution.
My Impact
Co-led all 14 user tests across 3 sprints, uncovering insights that sharpened our solution strategy and strengthened stakeholder alignment in bi-weekly syncs.
Led synthesis sessions on key trade-offs across product, design, and business goals.
Delivered sprint outcomes weekly by rapidly cycling through testing, insight distillation, and strategic iteration.
Design Iteration Timeline
May (3 days)
Sprint 01. Concept + Usability Testing, (n=3)
Sprint 02. Usability Testing #2, (n=7)
Sprint 03. Usability Testing #3, (n=4)
May - Jun (3 weeks / 3 sprints of testing + iteration)
Iteration
Final Deliverable
Design
User Testing
Stakeholder Alignment
3 Sprints
Iteration Highlights
Win-Win Ratio for Both User & Business
Points-Ratio Testing With Users
The most important part of our solution was finding a win-win ratio, rewarding enough points to motivate users while safeguarding Lime’s profits.
Testing three points-to-reward ratios with users revealed 75 points as the optimal threshold, maximizing both profit and satisfaction.
*5 points awarded/ good parking
50 pts = 1st reward
(10 good parking = 1st)
75 pts = 1st reward
(15 good parking = 1st)
100 pts = 1st reward
(20 good parking = 1st)
“this one's the best, because there's the lowest barrier to getting the free minutes.”
- P2 (2-3x a week) Lime Rider. Seattle WA
“If I was close to 75 points, it would incentivize me to try a different method to get points...if I was close to a fallen Lime, then I'd be like, let me just do that, because I know that I'm near five minutes free.”
- P3 Lime Rider. Seattle WA
“Damn I wish I was getting honestly more points... in this version one, the most expensive one, I will begrudgingly agree to it.”
- P1 Lime Rider. (4-5x a week) Seattle WA
Reward Tiers: Turning Good Parking Into High-ROI Free Rides
Below is the calculated tier using the 75points ratio.
When a user parks tidily and earns 75 points, they receive their first reward of 5 free-mins.
This 5-mins reward costs Lime $3.50, but generates $45 in revenue.
Tier 1 ROI: $45 revenue / $3.50 cost = ~12.9x return
Cost-Saving Formula to Fine-Tune ROI
To fine-tune reward efficiency, we developed a formula to optimize the reward-to-ride-minutes ratio over time. This model can be used to A/B test and calibrate the ideal points-to-reward ratio for maximum ROI.
Discoverability & Education
Active Pickup from Home Map
A visual indicator for fallen scooters was added to the map to improve discoverability. However, users needed initial guidance to understand its purpose.
“I feel like I wouldn't understand what it meant, unless I was told what it meant.”
— P4 Regular Lime Ride (2-3x week) Seattle WA Lime Pass User
“Yeah, I wouldn't have known about it without some meta information.”
— P6 Infrequent Lime Rider, Orlando FL
Before
Pickup button was introduced without onboarding
After
First-time access contextualizes the new Pickup feature
Other Discoverabilities & Education
First 5 Taps on App Open
Once they click learn more, no need to show this banner again.
First-Time Tap
This would be shown the first time the user toggles on the new view
Vehicle Tap
Further visual signifiers, educational material at proximity
IMPACT
Validated Solution with Strategic Impact
Our solution was positively received by Lime, aligning with their active exploration of reward-based systems. Through 3 design sprints, 14 user tests, and detailed ROI modeling, we demonstrated that a reward system could drive meaningful behavior change, scale to other rider tasks, and deliver high returns—operationally, financially, and through increased rider engagement.
Impact Highlights
UX Design Manager
“I'm super excited about these ideas too. Like, even just personally...I hope that we can borrow some pieces and bring it out to our riders.”
Industrial Design Manager
“I can see this maybe growing into a system where we provide points...we can then use points to incentivize other tasks too”
Senior Product Manager
“I was actually just pinging [UX Designer] on this side, and it feels like you guys have kind of read our minds with some of the projects that are ongoing”
The Lime Team - Strategic Fit, Stakeholder Approved
P2 (2-3x week) Seattle WA
“I think this would be, like, an awesome starting point to try and get me in the habit”
P1 (4-5x week) Seattle WA
“It makes me feel that lime is trying to do something mutually beneficial with parking...This [rewards] feels like we are working together”
P3 (2-3x week) Seattle WA
“It feels like there's some value being attributed to my labor”
The Riders - Behavior Change Riders Value
While this solution is still in the exploratory phase, the following metrics would be critical to validate its product impact post-launch.
Parking Compliance Rate (% change): measures the effectiveness of the solution in reducing parking violations and meeting city enforcement standards.
Rider Retention & Ride Frequency: tracks increases in repeat usage, indicating sustained behavioral change driven by the reward system.
Operational Cost Reduction: quantifies savings from fewer rebalancing efforts, customer complaints, and support interventions.