victoria lu

making off-campus housing search stress-free

Overview: One of the problems that Cornell students face is the task of finding off-campus housing. Regarding off-campus housing, students have to consider a variety of aspects, including but not limited to: location, price, and amenities. There are various complaints about the process being stressful, confusing, and not centralized. How can we design a centralized product that lessens the burden, makes the platform more user-friendly, and the process stress-free?

In the first portion of the process, my team and I collaborated to deliver a deck proposal with medium-fidelity diagrams for an off-campus housing app product. In the latter few weeks, I made revisions on the medium-fidelity diagrams to create a final prototype of the product.

Housing? A Stressful Conversation

At Cornell, it is a known fact that every fall, in August or September, the task of finding off-campus housing preoccupies a majority of the student body. Whether it be lining up in front of rental offices or chasing down landlords, Cornell students have voiced their complaints and frustrations with regards to finding off-campus housing options.

Problem Space

From talking to users who experienced the hunt for off-campus housing, we found some key insights:

• users cannot find a comprehensive platform that lists all the off-campus housing options
• it is difficult for users to coordinate correspondence with landlords via email and phone
• the process from looking at options to signing the lease is long and tedious

Target Audience

When exploring what subset of the Cornell population is considering off-campus housing, we found 3 general groups:

• sophomores - because of convenience and greater flexibility in meal plans and options
• juniors/seniors - because of unguaranteed on-campus housing options
• graduate students - different consumer segment, accomodations differ in terms of location, pricing, distance, etc.

Thus, we decided to focus on undergraduate students as our main target audience.

Market Analysis

What is the market size?

• Total undergraduate enrollment: 15,182 students
• Total sophomores, juniors, seniors = 15,182 - 3,325 = 11,857 students

Taking into account that not all sophomores, juniors, and seniors live off campus, we can estimate the market size to be around ~9,500 students.

Competitors

We found some existing websites included: Cornell Off-Campus Living and College Pads

In general, we found that many of the sites were not user-friendly, had confusing interfaces, and provided limited information.

How to Alleviate Stress?

Brainstorming

Based on the prior research and the user interviews we conducted, we decided to categorize the findings via affinity diagrams.

After categorizing these findings, we decided to sketch some possible ideas and designs for the new product. Below are some of the low-fidelity sketches that I drew:

Choosing an Idea:

From all of our sketches, we decided to pursue a Tinder-inspired app product to address our problem space.

This app will:

• contain relevant information that most of the users found necessarily for off-campus housing, including: location, distance, cost, amenities
• show user housing based on preferences
• enable users to "swipe" on housing they like and be matched with landlords/rental companies
• provide users with a "favorites" list to document their favorite listings

Why Did We Choose This?

• this solution will make the act of searching for off-campus housing less stressful and more interactive
• there is a comprehensive list of housing available that fulfill the users’ preferences and users can get a complete idea of what is available for them, as well as the timeline of finding houses (an aspect that was mentioned frequently as a pain point).
• it has a high value and low cost. This app solves our problem statement of “when an undergraduate Cornell student uses this product they want to improve their experience of finding off campus housing” through the creation of a centralized product that enables users to receive all relevant information regarding off-campus housing and allowing them to sort by the factors that they personally want to consider when looking into options.

Medium Fidelity Flow

After coming up with a solution, our group decided to create a medium-fidelity sketch to get a general visual of how the app will work.

Some design considerations:

• Pastel colors: used to create a calming and welcoming effect, while maintaining a fun tone; this is a contrast to the general monotonous tones that current websites have
• Buttons and Swiping: using Tinder as inspiration, we decided to incorporate some of the design elements and functionality of Tinder, such as buttons for "like/dislike", "favorites", etc.

Swipe Right or Left on the App Idea?

Formative Usability Testing and Summative Tests

Using these low fidelity sketches, we conducted usability testing and summative tests to gain user feedback.

Some of the metrics that we measured:

• Time Spent: how long it took to complete task
• Success Rate: how well task was completed

Some of the overall takeaways/findings:

• User would appreciate a screen with instructions explaining how the app works
• User needed prompting getting started and clarity about the “favs” page and how to get to “preference”

Having completed user testing, my group and I presented a case study detailing the business model and the ideas behind our product.

Adding a Splash of Sophistication

In the weeks after the course ended, I decided to make further revisions on our medium-fidelity flow to create a final prototype for our product. Taking the user feedback and general visual design principles, I generated a high-fidelity flow for the product. Below is an overview of the final product:

Final Design Elements

Final Considerations

Off-campus housing is a prominent issue for undergraduate students. While this app is a step in the right direction, it is important to note that this app is very focused on users. There still is room for consideration regarding clients (such as landlords). Since a product is two-sided, with both users and clients, it is essential to consider both sides. However, this app does solve our problem space, by providing a comprehensive platform for users to search for off-campus options stress-free and interactively.