Project
Property rental platform designed for international students in Umich to find a suitable place to live.
Product Designer
Solo
Sep. 2019 - Dec. 2019
Course Project @ Introduction to Interaction Design
Challenge
Most international students are frustrated by housing issues. Studies show that the satisfaction of housing may influence students’ academic and social development, especially in the first two years.
This project address the inability of international students to seek a suitable place to rent. I explore the problems these students are facing and find ways to tackle these challenges with design solutions.
Solution Overview
In my research, I met with 4 interviewees in person and asked them about their experience house-hunting in Ann Arbor and their living preferences. Based on the interviews, I concluded 4 pain points that my design can potentially fulfilled.
There are too many properties for rent, but most of them do not fit user's need.
Users have limited time making decisions while working on other tasks.
Limited pictures available and users can't visit the places in person.
Users aren't confident communicating with landlords with English
To sample accurately, I invited 4 interviewees from 3 different school, 3 different country, and 3 different education status for semi-structured interviews. During the interview, they were asked to talked about following topics:
According to the interviews, most of them were not satisfied with the current place and looking for opportunities to move. they also mentioned the obstacles encountered:
"I was frustrated by how much choices I have."
"I have to deal with other things like applying for Visa, finishing up my research etc. I just didn't have so much time for it."
"It's like gambling. I couldn't get their to see it, and couldn't find photos of the room neither."
"I was worried about that my English aren't good enough to communicate with the landlords."
Based on the interviews, I also identified target audiences to be 18-30 years old international students having English as second language and created personas to reflect on user's motivation and struggles. So that I can better understand and empathize with them.
I also created an anti-persona to help me concentrate on the problem I plan to deal with.
In the interviews, the participants provided different ways they collect housing information. I selected 5 Main Ways from them and conducted comparative analysis using the pain points as criteria.
However, none of these platforms provide a precise result efficiently, and help users to further learn about the properties.
I synthesized the user's pain points I found through interviews and the market opportunity discovered from the competitive analysis. From the research, I found out the design focus of my design was to keep the result precise and help the users to understand the properties in different ways.
Enable users to get precise result efficiently
Enable users to learn about the properties visually
Help users to ask questions, and get their questions answered
I sketched out my ideas, conducted participatory design sessions with peers/potential users, and used QOC analysis to generate my design solution:
I first letted my imagination fly and sketched out my ideas. It's the most efficient way to iterate my thoughts, share with peers/potential users, and get feedback on them.
Link current student with newbies to answer housing questions
Enable students to identify properties that fit their needs
Use robots to allow room-viewing without physically visiting
Provide international brokerage services
Make 3D model of the properties for remote room-viewing
After discussing with peers and potential users. I used QOC analysis to evaluate each of the potential solutions.
To generate a comprehensive solution, I decided to merge "Precise Searching" and "Robot Room-viewing." into a platform that provide precise housing information and Enable room-viewing with robots or friends.
Based on the prior comparative analysis and brainstorming, I came up with 3 potential solutions that may be used to lower the amount of information the users are exposed to.
Collect data from users and provide recommendations based on it.
System provides recommendations based on preferences user entered.
Enable users to search and filter through available results.
According to prior interviews, I came up with 4 criteria users care about while searching and evaluate potential solutions with these criteria.
From the QOC analysis, I decided to combine the strength from two potential solutions:
Finally, I adopted the one-sentence design on Kickstarter. Through gathering multiple questions into one sentence, users may answer the questions effortlessly. At the same time, I enable users to apply filters only on criteria they care for better flexibility.
After I decided on the features. I created an user flow diagram to help me define structure of the system and served as the reference for my prototypes.
I started from making a paper prototype. It's the most efficient way to have something for face-to-face user tests. Also, while it looks sketchy, it can help users focus more on the interactions and flows instead of UI details.
I used Adobe Xd to design the user interface for this project. Before designing, I researched and adopted the University of Michigan's brand and visual identity design guidelines so that my project can fit in the overall style of the university.
While creating the hi-fi prototype, Instead of creating fancy micro-interactions, I focus on giving user visual hints and guides so that they don't feel lost or frustrate. Also, I tried to integrate great design from existing tools. Like the one-sentence question from Kiskstarter and different types of inputs from Airbnb.
I took my prototypes to 4 potential users and asked them to do several tasks. From my observation and their feedback, I made 2 major design changes and several minor changes on detail. Through iteration, my design became more tailored to users' needs.
As soon as I made my paper prototype, I brought it to 2 potential users and asked them to finish following tasks:
While doing tasks of searching, they asked similar questions:
"May I change my preferences on traffic?"
"Where can I change my traffic preferences?"
While both of the users asked to refine their commuting preferences on the map page, I added them to the filters. I didn't use the one-sentence form at the first page. Instead, three seperated drop-down button are used to maintain consistency of the UI elements.
During the tests, one of the participants was unsatisfied with the process of the compare feature, he said:
"Okay...I clicked the compare, and...?"
"I'm overwhelmed by these irrelavant information."
Based on my observation and user's feedbacks, I changed the "Compare" feature from "click Compare button on two items to compare" to "Compare whatever user saved". Also, I decreased the amounts of characteristics showing in the default "Compare" page, and users may choose to apply those they care about.
After finished up my hi-fi prototypes, I tested my design with several domestic students. Surprisingly, they found it useful even for inter-state students. I then noticed that while the need for a more precise search feature is common among students, this design had the potential to serve a broader target audiences.
Compared to search/filter/compare features, the need of a remote room-viewing was less required by my potential user polls. So, I decided to spent my limited time on the searching process of the systems. If I had more time, I would iterate the details in remote room-viewing and make further tests on it.
At the beginning, I tried to apply creative interactions to add some fun to my design. However, they endup confused the users. So I learn to consciously researched on existing designs. Extract their advantage, and apply them to my design.
Design iteration is an essential process of UX design. With the help of design tools like persona, user testing, QOC analysis, and A/B testing, I'm able to reflect on my own design critically and objectively. In every iteration, my work get closer to user's needs.
