Roomis
UX Design ︲ UI Design ︲ UX Research
Mobile App
2020
About Roomis:
Roomis is an application platform for University of York students to find the perfect flatmates from vegan yoga gurus to hardcore sports fans. We have the plan to do this through housing and opportunities filters allowing users to go all the way down to college activities filters, in-unit washers, and wi-fi connection types. Furthermore, users will also have the ability to message people super-fast, simple, and efficient, so that they don’t have the long anxious wait for long and awkward “you’ve been matched!” results; allowing the user to decide who they want to be friends with.
The Challenge:
The high-level goals were to:
- Create a quick, helpful and user-friendly system to allow users to find the perfect flatmates and friends.
- Match the different users based on interests and what they are looking for in relation to the accommodation.
- Make it as easy as possible for users to apply for accommodation at the University
My Role:
I was the User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) designer for this project. I also made sure I received feedback from fellow designers and possible users in order to improve and get other perspectives about what I was designing.
Main Tasks:
- Customers Insights & Ideation
- Building the Project Vision
- Sketches
- User Scenarios
- Wireframing
- Interactive Prototype
- Developing the User Interface
Design Toolkit:
Design Process:
The first step of the design process involved user interviews and desk research to understand how competitors and users behave. I believe it’s important to get this information early on in the process, before having an idea or prototyping.
After analysing the findings from the interviews and research, I began to conceptualise the solution focusing on user flows and wireframes to give me a way to iterate faster through ideas. From this, I went to the production mode, designing the interface considering design principles such as contrast, hierarchy and feedback; brand attributes; user interactions, and the imagistic universe presented as a briefing by the case.
Once the interface was ready, I took feedback from two other fellow designers in order to understand the experience gaps. Validation, although part of my usual design process, would be a post-conceptualization and interface step and won’t be discussed in depth in this case.
User Interviews:
User interviews were the core user experience method used in this project. That’s why I chose to approach 10 people to interview, taking into account the article from Donald Norman “Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users,” noting that it is possible to learn about 80% of the errors, problems, and behaviour from the first 6 users. That would bring enough data and inputs to generate concepts and hypotheses. After the conceptualization phase, I took the prototype out to test with other users in order to gather more feedback and validation.
Interviewed Audience:
The interview sample took into account not only gender differences, but also age, culture, ethnicity, and financial background, however all subjects that were interviewed were all students at the University of York
The interview took approximately five minutes and included prompt questions to get to the core of what users were looking for and to help highlight their pain points. These prompt questions were:
- What was your experience like when selecting accommodation for the University?
- Where did you go to see what was best for you?
- What do you make of the University’s process for selecting accommodation?
- Would prefer it if you could message the person you could be sharing a flat with?
Customer Insights:
After analysing the interviews, despite the amount of generated data, the most relevant hypothesis for decision-making in creating the solution was:
Social media is playing a vital role within the student accommodation selection process, and students are paying attention to this due to them spending countless hours on social media. Instagram pages that are filled with essential information, stories about companies, tips and tricks, and places to live in, is the kind of information students want to know about. Having a lot of high-quality imagery and lots of informative content without it being thrown down their throats is what they react best to. In addition, having high-quality videos, partnerships, and blog content to educate themselves, boosting our expertise and authority in the process also helps students find out what’s best for them.
Students are in a rush, so speed is everything. If our app is slow loading, we’re not only killing our visitors we will also causing ourselves to lose potential customers even before they have a chance to read about the service we provide to students. The impact of slow page load is even more severe for us than other apps. Having a fast app is crucial if you want a good chance for us to get more and more students to buy accommodation through us especially when the use of private landlords for students is going up.
Desk Research:
In addition, I researched data and habits related to other current accommodation application services on offer for university students. The goal was to understand how competitors behave and benchmark innovative student services.
The article Accommodation Top Apps Rundown published by The AFS Team brings relevant examples to the discussion such as CirTru, Roomgo, Roomster, UniPlaces addressing different ways they find the best roommate for their users.
Market Insights:
A record-breaking 39% of all 18-year-olds in the UK submitted an application to start studying at UK universities in September 2019, according to data from UCAS, with just over a fifth of applicants from outside of the UK. Quite rightly, increasing participation rates are viewed as a real strength for the UK student accommodation sector. From an accommodation perspective, most markets remain structurally undersupplied and investment, from a diverse range of funders, has continued apace.
Affordability is the number one issue facing students and whilst value for money is the most important factor influencing decisions on where to live. For Universities and accommodation providers this means delivering the highest quality accommodation possible within the constraints of viability. Operators must be quick to identify and prioritize the elements in accommodation that are most important to students such as good wi-fi, location, and transport links.
A survey done by Knight Frank and separate data from HESA suggests that international students are the most likely to be renting and more likely to live in PBSA than domestic students. Of interest to accommodation providers, this group of students is also the most likely to stay in the same accommodation for the duration of their study with 43% saying that the option to stay in the same accommodation for more than one year was “extremely important” or “very important” when deciding where to live.
Concept:
To redevelop the current accommodation system at the University of York with a quick, helpful, and user-friendly system allowing users to find the perfect flatmates through the use of our filter controls along with the college that suits their personality and financial background.
About Roomis:
Roomis is a mobile application platform for University of York students to find the perfect flatmates from vegan yoga gurus to hardcore sports fans. This is done through housing and opportunities filters allowing users to go all the way down to college activates filters, in-unit washers, and wifi connection types.
Furthermore, users will also have the ability to message people super-fast, simple, and efficient, so that they don’t have the long anxious wait for long and awkward “you’ve been matched!” results; allowing the user to decide who they want to be friends with.
Wireframes:
The wireframes were created to build the structure and architecture of the information and only then go to visuals and interactions.
User Questions:
The unique selling point of my app compared to the current University accommodation system is our use of filters and personality questionnaires. Once the user has created an account, they will then be required to answer a few questions so we can match them to other students better.
The first part has been created so we can find out what the user’s personality is. They are required to select the things that most reflect their personality from being foodies, a party person, or a night owl this will show other people what kind of person the user is. Users will then be required to fill out a bio. This bio allows the user to tell potential housemates a little about themselves, their living habits, and what they are looking for. This also seen on the user’s profile can give visitors the opportunity to learn about the person and whether or not to message them.
The final part is where the user answers questions about their living habits. This is the most important part when the user is creating their profile as this has a major impact on who they would be most suitable for living with. They will be asked questions such as if they smoke, how tidy they are as well as if they will be having guests visit. During my time at York, I realised that living habits were the most prevalent cause of disputes within student accommodation, therefore, grouping people by shared living habits will hopefully minimise these arguments.
Home:
The home page of the app is where all the rooms throughout the university and colleges are displayed. To save the user time and make sure that the right rooms fit their personal needs the page has a filter feature allowing users to filter all the rooms that don’t fit their preferences. This covers everything from price, amenities, facilities, and rental duration. The page uses a scroll showing all the different accommodation types, and, when the user finds one that has grabbed their attention, the “Click On” button will direct them to that room page.
Accommodation:
The accommodation pages are the front cover of the rooms that the University offers. If they aren’t presented well there will be a loss of interest to stay in them. By designing them so only the most vital information is displayed such as pictures, specifications, description, and price means the page is clear and concise. By reducing the amount of clutter often seen on other accommodation websites users will be able to see the clean and clear path to the booking of one of the rooms for the year ahead quickly and easily.
Direct Messages:
It was vital for users to have the ability to talk to new people, and possible flatmates, to allow them to build connections before agreeing to live with each other. By doing this users don’t have the long anxious wait for long and awkward “you’ve been matched!” results; allowing the user to decide who they want to be friends with. This is an extremely anxious time for students with the pressures of exams and leaving home/university life and the pressure of having to match with someone will not make it any better.
Profile:
The user’s profile pages have been designed so that users can engage and communicate with each other. We want the app to be a digital bar where users have the ability to make new friends and so they can get to know each other before they come to York as well as the possibility to become flatmates.
University group chats are very popular for new students to communicate with each other. However, with Facebook losing popularity and not being the main social media platform, I believe there needs to be a new way for users to engage with one another before making the big step into University life.
Colours:
Due to the brand’s guidelines, we decided to pick a bright and inviting tone, so we chose blue and red to break the white and make the brand youthful and remarkable.
Green was added as well to give the interface a more playful and vibrant look as well as contrasting well with illustrations.
For text, black was bought in to ensure reading and contrast, thus reaching appropriate levels of accessibility.
Typography:
Since the majority of our users will be aged 18-25 and will be youthful we understand that this could be used as an opportunity in the app interface but still keeping it clear and easy to read for users. Therefore, we use the combination of Tiempos serif typography with a sans-serif Circular.
other Work
UniRoomy
UniRoomy
UniRoomy
