Room4U
Collaborators: Liang Yuan-Hsin & Yu Wan-Ting (Researchers), Wu Chao-Min (Researcher, UX Designer)
Tools: Figma
Problem Statement
More and more renters are seeking share houses for better living quality and lower rent. However, these youngsters met difficulties finding roommates who are clean and easy to get along with.Our goal, thus, is to help people find rooms in a shared house and match new roommates speedily and more transparent.
User Studies
1. Background
As Taiwan's house price remain stake high, 3 million people either choose to, or are forced to rent a place. Among the different types of renting living places, 40% are those are share houses.
2. Survey
According to our online survey, 40% of the respondents primarily use Facebook posts and other social network to find roommates who they did not know beforehand. 30% respondents find roommates within a week, while 47% respondents find their roommate more than one week.In addition, 20% of respondents don't know where to look for new roommates, and 34% have concerns for living with a complete stranger.
3. Interview
We selected our interviewees according to these characteristics:
Have long been a renter of rooms, suites, or shared houses.
Are open to live with strangers, several conditions may apply
Have experiences searching or finding roommates to share in an apartment floor
Who Are Our Users?
Information Architecture
Targeted users are divided into 3 categories:
People/Roomies match searchers (Red flow) -> Looking for roommate searching and matching according to daily routines and personal interest
House resources posters, such as sublessor or owners (Green flow) -> People who want to combine house and roommate searching
Home/Physical place finders (Blue flow) -> People who want to send speedy messages without the hassle of invading private life
Wireframing
Onboarding and User Diverging
User Type 1: Roommate Matching
User Type 2: Posting vacant house and room resources
User Type 3: Housing Resources Searchers
All Users - Main Menu And Navigation
Reflections:
The app function is structured, while the usability is not yet tested
We would like to interview more home owners to understand their concerns, needs, and budget concerns regarding posting their rental resource online.
We want to know whether the quick chat CTA will really encourage the users to initiate conversations.
Next Steps
My next step is to conduct first stage usability testing to validate the feature design for focus groups. I will examine whether the user flow is smooth.
