Assignment Roommate & Room Seeker App
Problem Statement
Design a mobile product experience that makes it safe to find the ideal roommate in New City. Design the experience from the perspective of a person who is looking for a roommate as well as the one who is looking for an apartment. After finding the ideal roommate, what else can this product do to make the roommate experience better?
Design Process Breakdown
My Framework of problem-solving
To have a better understanding of pain points and challenges faced by roommate seekers and room seekers, I started my primary research by interviewing a small group of 5 people.
I have chosen the qualitative research method and prepared the questionnaire for the same.
Primary Research
Through primary research, I get an understanding of pain points and challenges people face during their search. I get to know that people prefer roommates with similar lifestyles and interests to live with. I also get to know that people prefer a roommate if they are from the same home town and universities or even if they are of the same profession.
At the same time, people want to explore each other. Also, they would love to have a referral feature in their app. During qualitative research people also mentioned sometimes it takes weeks to months in finding the right match for a roommate.
Secondary Research
During my secondary research, I came across a number of apps that are already in the market and trying to solve the same problem by their means. Although, I found the experience pretty much the same in all of them. Below are a few examples.
I also stumbled upon many of the articles on medium trying to solve similar or kind of the same problem. One that I found most interesting and helpful is by Alban Carmet. Alban listed out the advantages and disadvantages of a number of apps and presented them beautifully.
Article link :
Study and Evaluation
While going through all the findings during Primary and Secondary research, I found that people somehow trying to make an emotional connection with their roommates. They prefer people with the same interest, likes, and dislikes. They also like to have a sneak peek of the candidates' social(i.e Facebook, Instagram)as well as professional profiles(i.e Linkedin) before finalizing them as their roommate.
User flows
There are two basic flows one is Onboarding the user into the app depending upon their persona and requirements.
The second flow is of matching the requirement and leading to the best possibilities. Matches are based on the mentioned requirements and interests of both roommates and apartment seekers. In addition to that if there are any references for some roommate/apartment those will be prioritized amongst the rest of the matches.
Wireframes
I have skipped the high fidelity wireframe part due to a shortage of time and done some low fidelity paper wireframes.
Visuals
I have designed two screens one with a list view and another one with a map view for the same.
This screen basically is for the user who is looking for an apartment. In the list view, the user will have suggestions based on matches among different variants of profiles.
I tried to keep UI clutter-free and introduced bright colors as indicative of CTAs.
Once the user is done with his search of the apartment and finalized one, we can take feedback from users about their experience of living in that apartment and roommate too. They can rate both(apartment & roommate) and help others to find a better match.
Feedback from users can prove as a catalyst to improve the product experience.
Thanks & Please feel free to share feedback.
