RooMe

A roommate finding app that provides safety and matches different personalities

Timeline: 4 weeks

Role: UX Designer

Client: School Project

Team: 2 UX Designers/2 UI Designers

Summary

I designed an app for people struggling to find a roommate who shares similar values and interests in life. I was involved in every aspect of the design with specific focus on research, and UX design. Within the four-week timeframe, we successfully delivered a Hi-fidelity prototype, style guide, and concept presentation to our mentor.

Problem

The process of finding a roommate can be lengthy, overwhelming, and potentially risky. Safety concerns, such as encountering catfishing or dangerous individuals, pose significant problems in the current roommate search landscape. Therefore, the objective is to explore ways to make the roommate-finding process easier, more personalized, and safer. Our primary target demographic consists of young professionals and students aged 18-30, with a specific focus on the UK market.

Solution

We developed RooMe, a roommate finding app for individuals seeking roommates who align with their values and interests. To ensure safety, RooMe utilises digital ID authentication and it includes a compatibility quiz that helps filter out potential mismatches, reducing the risk of living with incompatible roommates.

The process

1.Understand

We conducted qualitative research, including semi-structured interviews and secondary research, to gain a deep understanding of our users and the rental market. My responsibility was to prepare the interview guide, and conduct them. This research informed the creation of a persona, guiding our design decisions and helping us identify with our users.

“It would be fun to have someone with who you can share your interest at least a little bit”

- Tyra, interviewee

User Persona

2.Define & Ideate

After completing our research, we synthesised our findings and identified patterns, which we then organised into three main categories. Through team discussions, we derived insights from these patterns, which informed the creation of our need statement and the development of our "How Might We" (HMW) question.

Insight 1

Insight 2

HMW Question

At this stage, we got a lot of ideas for the potential solutions, however to priorities ideas and to avoid falling into the ‘creative paradox’ we applied the How-Now-Wow Matrix. While ideating we kept in mind our users' needs for safety, easiness of use, and the possibility to find a roommate who values the same things.

How-Now-Wow Matrix

Card Sorting

I conducted open card sorting to understand our users' thought process and used that information to create the user flow and the happy path.

Happy Path

Insight 3

3.Prototyping and Testing

Pen & Paper

User Testing

We started with a low fidelity by sketching with pen and paper to get our ideas out. Then we moved to Figma to design a higher fidelity of our prototype to be able to test it.

During my user testing, I asked users from our target group to perform a task (signing up and finding a match). The users feedback was mainly about:

  • The lack of freedom when answering the quiz

  • The quiz is too long (10 questions)

  • I noticed some users were answering randomly

Iteration

Prototype initial version

To address this we implemented the option to:

  • Skip the quiz and complete it later.

  • We reduced the quiz to 3 scenario-based questions instead of 10.

  • We ensured they cover our users' key concerns.

Prototype final version

After many iterations of the prototype, we created a design style to make sure we have a unified UI throughout RooMe. Through the guide style, we wanted to talk to our target group by choosing daring fonts and vibrant colours.

Style Guide

4.Final Result

Roommate finding apps are not a new invention. However, our goal with RooMe was to make the experience of finding a roommate easier and more personal but also more trustable and safe at the same time.

Personal Reflections

Stepping outside of our comfort zone and experimenting with new ideas and concepts can lead to innovation, creativity, and unexpected solutions.

Planning and better duties distribution within the team, If I were to do this project again, I would dedicate more time to planning and ensure that the team is aligned on goals and expectations.

Lastly, if we had more time, I would conduct additional user testing to measure the success rate of the registration process, the time it takes to complete the registration, and the effectiveness of finding a match. This would help us identify any pitfalls in the flow.