I interviewed three college students who either have parking passes currently or who have purchased a parking pass in the past but do not currently have one.
Alternative evaluation:
When discussing why my interviewees bought parking passes, it was clear that the overall goal of everything related to this was solely based off of convenience. Whether it be convenience with driving to classes, driving to grocery stores and friends off campus houses, or driving back home for breaks, convenience was the main priority. This is ultimately how the buyers did their picking. When talking to them about their thought process, they did a pro con essentially of other options, including walking around campus, taking the bus, getting a bike, or just ubering everywhere (and then getting a ride with someone else to get back home for break).
How/where do they buy?
I began by asking general questions about where they buy certain products: online or in person. I then went broader and asked where they purchase most of their stuff now and they mostly said online. I then asked where they purchased their parking permit and it was consistent with their previous answers as they had all bought them online. They all used a credit card to purchase this as well as most of their stuff as you cannot use cash when buying things online.
Post-purchase evaluation
As I had previously stated they based their entire purchase on convenience. If having the product (a parking pass) made life more convenient to them, then it was a successful purchase. It didn’t make life more convenient, then it was an unsuccessful purchase. One of my interviewees did not re-purchase a parking pass because she felt it did not make life more convenient. Another interviewee did purchase it again because he said it helped him get around places and the third is still deciding if she is going to re purchase a pass next semester.
Conclusion
Based off these interviews and after doing this assignment, it is clear that these individuals and most likely the rest of the population with parking passes is convenience driven. Based off that, there is a need for better parking to make life more convenient for college students. We are all very stressed already and do not want to have to worry about figuring out where to park, Helping the parking situation would be greatly loved by most college students.
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up a great point in that college students care most about convenience. Having better parking options would make life so much more convenient for college students and therefore would be a very beneficial change to make on campus. However, I think finding a way to implement this process will be difficult as there is limited parking on campus in general, and allocating what is available to students and faculty will be a challenge.
Hi Aaron,
ReplyDeleteThank you for organizing your post in a manner that is easy to comprehend all the key takeaways. I believe you are correct when discussing how convenience is the basis of students' decisions, especially when it comes to parking. More parking is a necessity on this campus and I hope it can be achieved sooner than later. Thank you for sharing.