Roomly
Renting Re-Invented
Roomly is a concept project that I created to solve for compatibility problems in roommate and rental situations. My vision for this app was to develop a matching system that communicates visually when people are a good fit for sharing a living space.
This project took a comprehensive user-based design approach, including competitive analysis between similar apps, surveys, and in-person interviews.
Low to high fidelity prototypes were designed based on my user research, and tested to ensure they solved for the problems noted in other rental applications. My design process is outlined in detail below.
Design Process
01
Design Brief
My first step in this project was to define the use cases, pain points, and goals for Roomly. By focusing on what scenarios and problems my app solves for, I could better design my app in a way to provide solutions for the problems that other rental applications do not address.
Different people will have different motivations when it comes to making a decision on a person they move in with or welcome into their home, where Roomly focuses on eliminating that frustrating process of filtering through applicants to show you only the most compatible candidates.
02
Personas
Based on my user and market research, I created several personas to reference when designing features and task flows.
People from all ages and wakes of life find themselves needing to rent out a room for one reason or another, and finding a person that does not take away from one's quality of life is key to a successful roommate experience. These personas represented those unique needs and lifestyles that play a role in choices people make when searching for a living space.
03
Competitive Analysis
I compared features between popular rental applications (Craigslist, Roomster, and Zillow), then created diagrams to visualize those comparisons. This helped me determine which features were important to include in my prototype and which pain points in the user experience I should try to solve for.
04
Survey Research
17 people participated in an online survey I created, which helped me determine trends in user needs and considerations when searching for a room or roommate.
These findings helped provide context into which features may be important to include in my initial wireframes.
05
User Interviews
Along with survey research, I recruited 5 people for in-person contextual interviews. I created a research outline and script to follow, then wrote up a findings summary to reference as I created features for Roomly.
Key Takeaways:
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People want to be friends with their roommates.
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They prefer to find roommates from friend recommendations.
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People prefer to use platforms that are reliable, easy, and familiar
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What made a roommate experience pleasant for so many participants was good communication and having similar habits.
06
Customer Journey Mapping
Using the context from my user research, I created a Customer Journey map to help me better understand the thought process users may go through when browsing for rentals/roommates:
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Finding roommates can be stressful, therefore being able to find someone quickly can reduce this significant pain point for people seeking roommates.
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As there are many other rental platforms out there that people default to, it was important to make sure that this one would have a quick and easy set up so that people get beyond the login page and are instantly shown results.
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Ensuring that the setup is quick and painless will help users acclimate to a new platform, while only having simple functionalities for posting listings or profiles to not overwhelm them with new features.
07
Task Flow
The final step I took prior to designing low fidelity prototypes was creating a few basic task flows. Using Lucid Chart, I defined pathways for the following scenarios:
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View potential roommates
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View their own profile
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Save other profiles and locate them later
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Send a message to a user from their profile page.
08
Paper Prototyping
The first design iteration was done through paper prototyping. Rough sketches of basic buttons and screens were created by hand, then uploaded to the POP prototyping application to simulate a paper prototype.
This allowed me to quickly wireframe some design concepts without investing too many resources visually in my initial prototypes (and therefore not interfere with any design biases I may have had with higher fidelity prototyping).
I then tested this prototype with users to capture feedback and adjust my content as needed.
07
Mid-Fidelity Prototyping
After testing my low fidelity wireframes, I created mid-fidelity designs within Sketch to incorporate their feedback. These wireframes were designed with the following considerations:
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Develop a flow that shows the most relevant information to the user when they access the app instantly. SSO solves for this.
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Important to provide people the option to view both roommates looking to move, as well as ability to post a listing with room information.
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While this design covered the more complex functionality of the app, it also made it clear that people respond better to simplicity. Replacing words with icons seemed to help solve for this.
08
High Fidelity Protoyping
The final step in my project was creating a high-fidelity prototype based off of the culmination of my design and user research. These designs included any improvements gleaned from testing my mid-fidelity prototypes, after-which they were made into an InVision prototype for demoing purposes.
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Moving to high fidelity made it easier to understand the user journey and refine the simplicity needed to make the app more approachable to first time users. .
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Creating a seamless experience from account creation/logging in to instantly showing results helps ensure user engagement.
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4 simple icons are available in the bottom menu that allow for users to post a new listing, view/update their profile, access their saved roommates, and view messages to easily maintain contact with candidates.
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People can also update their profiles at any time in case they missed something in their account setup.