Mobile App Designs

Project Brief

 

The assignment called for an original design of an iOS application that is necessary and beneficial for the community due to the impact of COVID. If the idea was not original, then the design must have an innovative twist to the existing design.

My project idea is a mobile application intended to match users with compatible roommate matches. The significance of this during COVID is greater than it has ever been due to the unique circumstances caused by mandates to work from home. For those living in close quarters with their roommate(s), working from home might be less than ideal if the living room is everyone’s home office. This new pandemic situation is foreign and is likely made more uncomfortable if roommate compatibility is not ideal. The use of the application will not only increase the confidence is roommate matches, it will enhance the home life of users by using a matching algorithm that connects people based on common interests and lifestyles.

Rent costs in Colorado have been increasing at a steady rate of 4% in 2019 and 3% in 2020 in comparison with previous years (Rent Café, 2020). As it stands, the average cost of rent in Denver, Colorado is about $1,674 for an average apartment size of 842 sq. ft. (Rent Café, 2020). Less than 5% of apartments are in the lower end cost range of $701-$1,000 per month, 40% of apartments run around $1,000-$1,500, about 36% of apartments in the market cost about $1,501-$2,000, and the last 19% of apartments go for over $2,000 according to Rent Café statistics. Per Apartment Theory (2018), in order to afford a studio apartment which averages at $1,460 per month, one must make about 40 times that for an average yearly salary of $58,400. That type of salary is far out of range for 20-24-year-old’s who make an average of $33,280 per year (Josephson, 2020). Even for people in the 25-34-year-old range who make an average of $47,736 per year are unable to feasibly afford a studio apartment in Denver, Colorado on their own with those numbers (Josephson, 2020). That is one reason for the increase in doubled-up households, or a household in which more than one earning adult resides, also known as roommates (Ferro, 2014). Since COVID-19, however, rent prices have remained the same and unemployment has doubled for 20-24 years old. This means rent ranges in Denver continue to be completely out of the question for the one in 10 Coloradoans affected by furloughs and unemployment which is even more reason for individuals to move back in with family or find roommates to pay cheaper rent (Allen, 2020). My app will help individuals looking for roommates so they can have affordable housing find their roommates just like they’d find matches on Tinder, Bumble, etc.

Design Process

 

During this process, I used several different types of software including LucidChart to create the user journey flowchart and Adobe XD to design the user interface of the mobile application. Once the user flowchart was created, I drew out rough drafts that included the possible placement of the buttons and then used Adobe XD to lay out my screens and digitally recreate my sketches.

My approach consisted of the steps for a design sprint as outlined by Google Ventures. The first step in the design process is to fully understand the problem at hand. To do so, it’s essential to conduct research on the market and get a full scope image of the competition. Once that was complete, I moved on to the diverging phase and contemplated several different ideas for the most functional designs. After looking at a bunch of different options on applications I use on a daily basis, I decided to keep the design as simple as possible and to model my design like the common dating application like Bumble.

Before prototyping, conducted a competitive analysis that included three apps that resembled mine. I conducted a feature audit that clarified how my application resembles and differs from those in the market. I also drew out a user journey flowchart to designate all start and finish points.

Competitive Analysis

 

            There are similar applications and websites similar to Room8 out there. One is Roomi, pictured below. They allow individuals to list the available rooms they have vacant and need to fill. Users are able to search by room or by roommate match. Users are able to use the map feature to visually see prices of places available for rent in the area they might be interested in living. Users can apply filters to narrow down their searches as well.

Positive:

• Map feature
• Can search for rooms or roommates
• Mobile app & website
• Can add desired lease length
• Functions similar to Zillow, Airbnb, with list and map view
• Payment processing
• Secure payments
• Background checks

 Negative:

• Once room and roommate are found, no need for it
• Have to have a room or find someone with a room – this doesn’t work if the users haven’t signed a lease so no one has a room

Images: Roomi browsing page

            Another competitor that appears to have started locally in Denver is Roomies.com. Similar to Roomi, users are able to see listing of vacant rooms and profiles of individuals looking for roommates in the area. Each profile has a description of the user with demographic information such as name(s), age(s), and area they are looking to live in. Unlike Roomi, Roomies.com appears to have the option to create one profile with all of the housemates’ information, so that people can keep old roommates and search for new ones together. This also allows the user searching to know all of the details up front.

Positive:

• Multiple roommates per profile
• Clean profile
• Featured sections (people can pay to be in the featured section to find a roommate)
• Filters
• Clean website
• Shows the last time user was online
• Free messaging
• Can list neighborhoods of interest on profile

Negative:

• No mobile app
• No map search feature
• Can see all of people’s profile information without having an account
• Not the most organized and aesthetic site

 

Image: Roomies app preview

Roomster is likely the largest competitor of Room8 because of the amount of time they’ve been in the industry. They’ve grown from a website to a swiping app that is imaged below which is the feature that I initially believed to be unique about my application.

Positive:

• Swipe function for searching for roommates on app
• Clean profile
• Filters for search – pets, location, budget
• Clean website and moble app
• Map search
• Easy profile set up – login with email, Facebook, Linkedin, etc
• Safetey is a priority – phone verification, social media verification levels depending on how many sites verified, and ID verification with license or passport
• Can enter card information

Negative:

• Can search for room or person to fill a room, but you need to be in a lease so you can’t just find a roommate for a brand new lease
• Have to pay $15 for background check

Images: Roomster app preview

Finding a roommate can be a long and sometimes inconvenient process. To make the roommate search simpler and more convenient, creating a mobile application that doesn’t require users to learn about its user interface is important. By using navigation symbols that resemble those of commonly used mobile applications like Facebook and Instagram, users spend less time trying to configure the application and are more likely to continue using the application. To achieve this, I designed my application to resemble Bumble’s user interface. In addition to that, I decided that the popular swiping function to match with compatible roommates would make the application more convenient versus searching manually. The target audience (young adults) will likely recognize the app and not discontinue the use for the lack of familiarity of the UI.

Design Feedback

 

For my usability study, I allowed five individuals in my family to manually use my iPhone connected to Adobe XD in prototype mode and noted their feedback. Prior to the usability study, the mobile application had four navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen. They consisted of a search tab, messaging tab, main swiping page tab, and a profile tab. Upon immediate examination, 4 out of 5 of the testers immediately asked about the purpose of the search tab and if it offered significant purpose or swayed users away from the immediate swiping function. They also notated the need for back errors on all of the editing screens so that the user can easily navigate back to the previous page. 2 out of 5 of the individuals, mentioned the use of an email address as a sign-up option in addition to the phone number, Facebook, and Apple sign-up options.

Prototype and Final Design

 

Demonstration

 

Room8 Web Design

 

References

Allen, T. (2020, July 28). Here’s What The Numbers Tell Us About Colorado Coronavirus Unemployment. CPR News. https://www.cpr.org/2020/07/28/what-the-numbers-tell-us-about-colorado-coronavirus-unemployment/

Ferro, S. (2014, November 3). The Percentage Of Adult Americans Living With Roommates Has Been Surging. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-with-roommates-are-skyrocketing-2014-11

Josephson, A. (2020, July 20). The Average Salary by Age in the U.S. SmartAsset. https://smartasset.com/retirement/the-average-salary-by-age

Rent Café. (2020, February). Denver, CO Rental Market Trends. https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/co/denver/

Streit, K. (2018, August 14). The salary you need to live alone in every major U.S. city. Apartment Therapy. https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/average-salary-to-live-alone-by-city-2018-261415