Roomies!
Roomies!
Solving the “roommate situation”
About Roomies!
Roomies! is an app that connects you to various students to find a roommate and organize roommate tasks. This app addresses a real problem that many college students face when it comes to finding roommates for off-campus housing. For many, this will be the first time they live in their own housing with other college students. They may not know how to find a compatible roommate, or what roommate responsibilities there are when it comes to living with roommates other than their own family members. This app addresses both the issues of finding a compatible roommate and how to divide roommate responsibilities.
Timeline
Sept 2022 - Oct 2022
Role
UX Designer
Team
Individual
What I did
Brainstorm ideas
Define (Persona, User Flow)
Develop (Sketches, Wireframes, Usability Tests)
Deliver (High-Fidelity Prototype)
Design Process
Over the course of a month, I came up with my project idea, finalize my problem statement and target audience, and designed my app. To start my design, I started to do a few sketches of what types of screens and key actions I wanted to have to answer my problem statement. After I got the baseline of what I wanted in my sketches, I began wire-framing on Figma. The majority of my sketches made it onto my wire-framing and the sketches that did not were the ones that were not as relevant to my problem statement. I then began to start my High-Fidelity prototype by choosing my color themes, fonts, icons, etc.
Personas
Here are some persona maps I made for Roomies!
High Fidelity Prototype
The link to my prototype can be found here.
After trying out various layouts, colors, functions, etc., and discussing my design with my peers and instructors, this is my current version of this prototype. Looking through this mock-up will allow you to take a look as to the intended use of each feature I implemented to answer my problem statement. Below I also included brief descriptions of the key components of my app prototype.
There are 3 pages that the user can view by clicking the navigation bar.
Home page
Key Action 1: clicking on the three lines or the “filter” which is a filter page, the user can select multiple options as to what type of roommate they are looking for
Key action 2: clicking on the search button presents a keyboard for users to type in usernames to look up people on the app
‘Roommates’ page
Key action 1: clicking on the “messages” icon leads user to a page with messages they have with people on the app
Key action 2: clicking on the “roomies” icon leads the user to a page to see all user’s current roommates, the different tasks each roommate sees, and the option to add a roommate
‘Profile’ page
Key action 1: clicking “edit profile” allows the user to be able to change the name, username, profile picture, bio, and interests
Next Steps
This app gives a potential solution for college students that are either looking for a roommate, want to organize roommate responsibilities or both. While I do feel as if most individuals use other social media apps such as Instagram and Facebook to find potential roommates, people may not utilize these apps due to lack of popularity or the newcomer effect. If I were to move forward with this app, I would mainly focus on the components where roommates can add tasks, and schedules, and what roommate needs to do weekly for roommates to check and receive notifications as to whether they need to wash the dishes, take the trash out, etc. This was also my first ever Figma prototype, and there are various factors that I would consider for redesigning if I get the chance in the future.