Overview

Roomin is a Course project for a Master’s level Fundamentals of UX course that makes the process of finding roommates easier by encouraging increased transparency and trust among users.

see prototype

Role

I used user insights to help shape designs that made sense for both the users and the business.

User Testing, User Interviews, Stakeholder Presentation, Wireframing, Prototyping

September – November 2024 (3 Months)

Overview of Case Study:

  1. The problem statement
  2. The solution
  3. Design Process
    • User Persona
    • Happy Path
    • User Journey Map
    • Moodboard
    • Developing the MVP
  4. Usability testing with the first design
    • Feedback from initial screens
    • Improvements made after initial feedback
    • Feedback gained from expert presentation
  5. Usability testing with the second design
    • Feedback gained from expert presentation
  6. Updated final designs
  7. Prototype
  8. Results & Lessons Learned

The Problem Statement

This project addresses the difficulties people face when finding compatible roommates, particularly the challenges of trust and transparency during the roommate selection process.

The Solution:

In a perfect world, users would easily find compatible roommates who align with their values and preferences, creating a more comfortable and controlled living environment.

We have made this easier by Adding: A compatibility score, A review system, A verification system, and an Advanced Filtering system.

Design Process

Our Design Process consisted of user interviews

Statistics from our Primary Research – Gained from user interviews

User Persona

This user persona was developed by conducting 8 user interviews, each teammate conducted 2 interviews each and this is just a representation of the average person we interviewed, this does not speak about gender or anything like that, it’s mainly because we interviewed mostly males.

These are the main quotes we gathered from user interviews and expert feedback from experts in various companies such as IBM and the Government of Canada.

Happy Path:

This is a user flow of our project “Happy Path”, which mainly illustrates what a user flow looks like if everything goes well. We were short on time so we didn’t get to customize a full user flow.

User Journey Map

Moodboard

Developing the Minimum Viable Product

The initial focus was on core functionalities:

  • Creating a compatibility score.
  • creating a screen to learn more about compatibility.
  • create a review page.
  • create a vibrant and easy-to-use home page.

Usability Testing with First Design

We focused on these main screens to make sure the core usability of our app is tested and we can get feedback on parts of our app that are more important.

Feedback gained from initial screens:

How we improved the design with the feedback:

  • Gamified the Design for better retention.
  • Made it seamless to view profiles.
  • Made the home screen more concise.
  • Added drop-down bars to decrease information overload.
  • Removed the very long and tedious filter page and added filter popups instead for a more user-focused approach.

Usability Testing with Second Design – Hi-Fi Prototype

To map Roomin’s user journey, we started with basic mockups, outlining key user flows. Through collaboration, we landed on a clean, minimalist interface that prioritizes clarity. Finally, we built a clickable prototype using Figma, ensuring a seamless user experience and bringing Roomin to life as a user-friendly platform.

Key Feedback Gained From Expert Presentation

Updated Final Designs

New Profile Page with removed rating information.

Changed Review Page only to include the reviews instead of any rating system which can increase bias and complicate searching for a roommate.

view prototype

Prototype

Results and Lessons Learned.

Results

  • Users felt the app was intuitive and easy to understand/use.
  • The Compatibility Score was a great hit and users thought it was a great idea to streamline their process of finding a roommate.

Learnings

  • Prioritizing core user needs, the rating system was important but through testing, we had to remove it due to the feature’s increasing complexity.
  • Focusing on a concise design, in our initial design we had an infinite scroll homepage, but from user testing, we adopted a “dating app” look for the design to increase familiarity and increase the overall experience.
  • Decrease information overload, in our initial design we had a very long and tedious design for our preferences page, we fixed this by adding dropdown menus, so users ca choose what they want to see.