Leah's Portfolio

Once you begin living with your friends or random housemates, problems often come up. Between you and your housemates or roommates, have you ever received texts like the image below?

From random expenses that you weren't made aware of or a sudden notice that one of your personal items were borrowed and broken, through issues like these relationships can easily become tense and awkward resulting in built up resentment and unresolved conflicts.

So, my team and I thought of Roomie – a roommate communication app that removes potential awkward and uncomfortable conversations out of the way.

USER RESEARCH

What do students really want?

From this problem space, we conducted research to discover more about our user base.

To better understand and create for our peers’ needs, through interviews we focused on:

Learning how students are navigating living with peers

Learning different problems that they face while housing and rooming with friends

Learn what students wished they had as a potential solution

Outlier Research: What are some reasons some students decide to live alone?

USER PERSONA I

Introducing Peppa…

Peppa is a Junior at Cornell University. She is living off-campus for the first time.

Some of Peppa's wants are…

Wants to split chores, bills, and items evenly with her housemates
Wants to be aware of any events (birthdays, socials, prelim weeks) in the house

Some obstacles are that…

She is scared of confrontation or requesting things in-person
She wants to be able to quickly notify housemates when things come up

USER PERSONA II

& This is George…

George is a Freshman at Cornell University. He is living with a roommate for the first time.

Some of George's wants are…

To find a roommate with a similar lifestyle as an incoming freshman
Have a centralized place to keep track of his friends’ schedules

Some obstacles are that…

He is unsure on how to keep chores organized and keep track of shared items and bills
As a freshman, it is difficult to draw boundaries without hurting feelings

MAIN TAKEAWAY

What Did We Learn?

🔍

Finding roommates that will click with you and maintaining a good lifestyle and relationship, on or off campus, can be difficult

🎙️

Communicating with roommates about boundaries, chores, expenses, and more can be hard and awkward

OUR SOLUTION

How did solve the learned pain points?

Because this project was within a tight timeline, the team dived straight into feature ideation, finalization, and high fidelity prototyping. For each pain point we learned from a user interview, we translated it into a new feature.

FEATURE #1

Digital Dashboard

🙋‍♀️

"I want to quickly notify my roomies about things around the house"

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Digital dashboard feature to post small announcements

✅ Customizable mood rings (for the days you want to be alone!)

✅ Dashboard to quickly notify housemates

✅ Notifications on household events and chores

On the top exists your roommates' mood circles, so you get a quick read on the vibe in the apartment. No more roommates annoying you when you’re already overstimulated!

Right under that, we added a bulletin board. Anyone can drop a note, anonymous or not, whether it’s a reminder, a heads-up, or just something funny for the group. This can remove the awkwardness of some conversations you might have at some point, and also be a fun way to communicate!

FEATURE #2

Splitting Bills

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"I want a centralized place to keep track of expenses, and a better way to communicate it."

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Bill splitting feature that keeps track of all exchanged expenses

✅ Enter how much money has been spent

✅ Assign amount to specific housemates

✅ Keep track of who needs to be paid back

✅ Emotion-based responses to remove awkwardness

Although this kind of feature exists in other apps, many interviewees complained about the current options – stuff like subscription fees, confusing interfaces, and the fact that they’re not really made for college living. So, we wanted something that actually fits our users.

Where bill-splitting can be a sensitive topic, we wanted to make this feature feel a little bit more personal and a little bit less awkward. When someone requests a payment, the app sends a soft, emoji-based prompt instead of a harsh reminder. This makes the topic more approachable. This feature was a direct response to user testing and feedback.

FEATURE #3

Sharing Items

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"I want to clearly display what items are shared between roomies.

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Shared items feature to make properly keep track of shared items.

✅ Divide each item by category

✅ Take pictures and upload to show what's available

✅ Details on where it can be found, and who last used it

Through this feature, users can see what items their roomies are willing to share with them. This also helps avoid overstepping boundaries and having a list of items you're sure you can borrow. This feature was also directly rooted in user pain points, of wanting to set clear boundaries on personal items.

Users can also record use history whenever they borrow (optional), so that when the next roomie wants to use it, they know where to ask about its whereabouts.

FEATURE #4

Assign Chores

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"I want to keep a clear schedule on chores and a way to keep everyone accountable."

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Feature to assign chores and keep track of who is responsible for what, each day.

✅ Assign rotating chores to roommates

✅ In-app and out-of-app notifications

✅ Check off the to-do when chores are complete

Easily schedule roommates to conduct their weekly chores and make sure everyone is aware of the things they need to do for the house. The schedule is broken down into Today's, Upcoming, and Weekly to help roomies plan.

Notifications and checking of to-dos will also exist as sub-features to keep roommates accountable for their responsibilities.

FEATURE #5

House Calendar

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"I want to keep track of key dates in the house so that everyone is aware."

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Home calendar that roomies can input and check important dates

✅ Record key house dates (birthdays, midterms, socials, etc.)

✅ Schedule house-wide hang outs

✅ Be on the same page with everyone

The shared home calendar between all roommates makes it easier to find time to do things together, set house-wide events, and also be in the know of what is happening in your roommates' lives. This also helps you plan your alone time and let everyone be on the same page about having guests over.

No more forgetting your roomie's birthday or accidentally being too loud while roommates are studying for a final!

MARKET RESEARCH & DIFFERENCE

What sets Roomie apart?

After conducting some market research, we realized that in the current app market, there are no apps like Roomie. Most competitor apps consisted of singular features, such as just bill splitting or finding new roommates. During interviews, many users used self-constructed Notion documents or spreadsheets to take care of organization.

Roomie solely focuses on college students, making its features directly tailored to user needs. As college students ourselves, we were able to better identify what we looked for when living with a roommate, and made sure our app provides everything that is needed to bridge roommates together.

CONCLUSION

My Reflections

During this project, I learned…

👫

Setting a good engaged environment can produce great outcomes

I tried to foster a fun team environment where everyone could pitch in. This resulted in everyone being passionate and created one of my best team experiences.

🎨

Sometimes, the most "aesthetic" design choice isn't the best design

I faced obstacles when trying to convey organized information in visually appealing ways. I realized simple is best.

🔍

User insights can help break through blockers

When facing blockers in ideating ways to design features, going back to user interviews was the most effective .

This was one of my favorite projects to work on, since it was a problem space I thought about for some time. But there is still room to improve to bring this idea to life. Some pointers for improvement are:

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Learn how to prioritize features

Because all five features seemed significant, our team included all ideas in our final prototype. In the future, I hope to rank, then reduce or combine feature spaces depending on user needs.

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Explore different ways to convey data/schedules

Though I realized simple designs are best in this case, I think that I could continue iterating on the Chores screen to make better portrayals of information.