Finding a room & a roommate — a UX case study

This is a conceptual UX case study that focuses on improving the experience of the people who are searching for a room or a roommate in a city.

Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash

A few trends of note: 54% of the world’s population live in urban communities, the average marriage age for men is 29 (up from 26 two decades ago) and for women is 27 (up from 23 in the same time period). Given these trends, city dwellers tend to spend most of their twenties living with roommates. Finding and keeping a good roommate, however, gets harder as more people swarm into cities.

• The goal was to create a mobile experience for users who are searching for a room or a roommate in a city, by following a user-centred design process.
• To create a truly relevant design, I should first understand the user problems/pain points and the needs/preferences that they have while they search for a room or a roommate.

User Research

• To get an overall idea of how the users search for rooms/roommates, I first looked into a Facebook group called Flat And Flatmates, which is an online social media group where people post about their room or roommate needs and requirements. There, I was able to get some data regarding the user needs and preferences.
• Then I prepared an interview script with some questions that could help me know more about user problems, needs and preferences.
• Interviewing the users (qualitative research) really helped me get a lot of data points regarding the user pain points, needs, and preferences.
• With the data gathered from the user interviews, I created an affinity map.

• I was able to group the data into two main groups- room and roommates. Under these two groups, I was able to see patterns based on which I grouped the data into multiple subgroups like primary needs, secondary needs, pain points, etc.
• With the help of the insights gained from the affinity map, I created two personas. The user persona has some basic details of a target user, their goals, pain points, needs and concerns.

Key Insights

I was able to get some key insights from the user’s perspective when they are searching for a room and a roommate. Some of them are:

Rooms

• Users look for rooms that are located closer to their workplace/college. I observed that this is their top priority when searching for rooms.
• The rooms should have the essentials like hospitals, pharmacies, supermarkets and restaurants nearby.
• Accessibility: Public / private transport facilities should be available at or near the place.

Roommates

• Users feel it's better to have someone from their work/workplace or college/department as their roommate.
• They feel it's better if the roommate that they’re looking for has similar interests as them.
• The age difference shouldn’t be very much. They prefer their roommate to be in a similar age group.

User Pain Points

Some of the pain points and problems faced by the users have been given below.

Rooms

• Accurate information of the apartment(sq. ft/room size, attached restroom, location, etc.) and recent pictures of the place are not available.
• For that reason, the users have to visit the place in person and the process takes a lot of time and money.

Roommates

• No proper information of a person before choosing them as a roommate.
• As users don’t have proper information about their roommates, it causes various issues in their day to day life (privacy, splitting expenses, language barrier, etc.)

User Flow

I created a basic user flow that shows how the users would progress through the different steps of the solution. Through the course of this case study, I did make some changes to the user flow. The final version of the user flow is given below.

Wireframes

Having the user needs, preferences and pain points in mind, I started creating basic wireframes on Figma. I could’ve just sketched the screens by hand and could’ve started the visual designs. Instead, I concentrated more on the wireframes, used them as a very basic prototype to test with the users, got their feedback, made changes accordingly and then proceeded with the visual designs. I felt this could help me save some time.

Visual Designs

I used a mix of blue colours in the visual designs as blue colour signifies high quality and reliability. Also, the blue colour is perceived as fulfilling a need or solving a problem, based on colour psychology.

I wanted the designs to look clean and neat, with the use of colours wherever necessary.

Below are the main screens of the app and their processes explained in detail.

Home & Search

• The home page will be the first page that the user would see after signup/login. In this case, it will focus on the main purpose of the app- searching for a room and searching for a roommate.
• Searching a room and searching for a roommate can be done in two different ways.

Room

• One way is to actually search for rooms by looking at the listings posted by others. (Apartment Search)
• The other way is to let others know that you’re searching for a room and wait for them to reach out to you. (Profile Ad)

Roommate

• Likewise, when you’re searching for a roommate, one way is to actually search for roommates by looking at the listings and requirements posted by others. (Roommate Search)
• The other way is to list your apartment and let others know that you’re looking for a roommate to share it with. (Apartment Ad)

Home and search pages

Complete Profile

• The users searching for a room or a roommate must complete their profile by giving information about their interests, hobbies, and their work/education details.
• When a user is searching for a room or a roommate, this information will be helpful for them to know more about you, thus helping them in their decision-making process.

Complete profile forms

• The apartment search page displays the list of apartments available based on a given location.
• If a user wishes to search for an apartment located around his/her work location, they could just enter their work location on the location bar and all the available places around their work location are listed.
• They could also refine their search results by adding filters like, rent per month, BHK, etc.

Apartment Detail

• The apartment that a user is searching for is going to be his/her second home. It is where they would like to disconnect and take a rest after a tiring day at work or after a hectic day at college.
• Accurate details regarding the place should be available such that, it is sufficient enough for them to make a decision.

Apartment detail and schedule virtual tour pages

• The roommate search page displays the list of user-profiles (roommates) available based on a given location.
• When a user enters any location/area on the location bar, the list of users who are searching for a place around that location/area is displayed.
• They could also refine their search results by adding filters like, monthly budget, age group, etc.

Roommate Detail

• Users expect to know about someone before choosing them as a roommate. They’re going to share an apartment with this person. It's better and safe for them if they get to know about this person, like their interests, hobbies, etc.
• All such details that are required for a user to know a person before choosing them as a roommate are given on the roommate detail page.

• Users who plan to share their house and are searching for roommates can post an ad of their house with all the adequate details and list it on the app.
• Once the user adds all the details regarding their house, they will see a preview of their ad. They could cross-check the details and then confirm.
• In this way, they could let others know that they have a free room and are open to sharing it with someone.
• Users who are searching for an apartment will be able to view these apartment ads on the apartment list page.

• Users who are searching for a room could post an ad of their profile, with their requirements and list it on the app.
• Once the user adds all the details regarding them and their requirement, they will see a preview of their ad. They could cross-check the details and then confirm.
• In this way, they are letting others know that they are in search of a room.
• People who are looking to share their house with someone could view these profile ad listings on the roommate list page and could make a decision based on their preferences.

• Some of the other screens like the messaging page, profile section, onboarding screens, etc. are given below

Feel free to use the prototype of this app using the link given below.

Prototype Link

The goal of this case study was to improve the experience of a person searching for a room or a roommate in a city. Other than that, I could also work on some more concepts as this is a wide area to explore. Some of them are given below.

• Include a section for the landlords and house owners. Improve their experience while renting their places to tenants by understanding their needs, wants and pain points.
• After a user finds their ideal room or roommate, help them have a smooth experience and help them handle their problems.

This marks the end of this case study. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this case study!

I’ve been learning about User Experience Design through the online courses provided by the Interaction Design Foundation. I wanted to practically apply what I learnt there to see my level of understanding of the UX concepts, and that is why I decided to work on this case study.

I would love to hear your comments and suggestions regarding this case study. Constructive criticism is most welcome! You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.