Jades Design Sprint Journey
UX Design 2 (Unilodge- Roommate Feature)
Intro
The project brief for my individual prototype was to create a ‘Roommate’ feature, to help students find a compatible roommate. Unilodge is a hotel/accommodation business that offers affordable student apartments across Australian and New Zealand, for international and local students. It has recently been brought to the attention of Unilodge staff that students struggle to find the right roommate, and conflicts arise from incompatible personalities. The roommate feature will feature as a main menu item on the existing app, and it's goal is to allow students to find compatible roommates to share an apartment with. In doing this, it avoids conflicts of incompatibility. Another challenge of the brief is that once the ideal roommate is found, what else can this Roommates feature do to make the roommate experience better?
Sprint Day 1
Map and Sketch. Make a map of the problem and sketch a solution.
The first step of day 1 of the sprint was to identify the goals. I asked myself
“Why am I doing this project?”
My answer was to help students find compatible roommates.
I knew the primary goal was to help students find a compatible roommate. But in the journey of discovering this primary goal, some secondary goals were established…
- Goal to reduce conflicts that arise
- Goal to help with the process of finding an apartment.
The next step was to identify how this project could fail…
- If the student doesn’t find anyone, they are compatible with
- If the student finds compatibility, but not their ideal preferences (sex, age etc.)
- If conflicts still arise even with compatibility, or
- If the app has too much data to register
Turning potential problems into questions makes then easier to track during the sprint, and easier to answer with sketches and prototypes.
To proceed in the making of the app, I had to make the assumption that no conflicts would arise if the roommates were compatible.
I then had to understand the challenges I would face ahead, like…
- How might I show students their results of compatibility without it being overwhelming?
- How might I appeal to visual, auditory and hands on users?
- How might I ensure every student gets a compatibility match?
- How might I ensure the users interaction is easy and usable?
- How might I ensure a happy and healthy relationship between roommates? And,
- How might I resolve conflicts if/when they arise?
Before I could move onto day 2 of the sprint, I had to establish the user’s journey, and how they might come to the goal I wanted. Below is a user journey map, depicting just that.
Sprint Day 2
Decide and Storyboard. Decide what sketches are the strongest.
Moving onto day 2 of the design sprint, I wanted to start sketching. I gathered my notes and jotted down some rough ideas. (Seen below)
After that I identified the most promising ones, then created (a very rough and underdeveloped) 3-panel storyboard, or solution sketch. (Seen below)
After deciding on the idea I wished to continue with, I thought about the ideal user test flow, and exactly what I wanted to test my users with in Day 4. I broke it down into 6 steps of what the user would go through. (Seen below)
With my chosen user flow, underneath each step, I drew wireframes for the user interface screens for that step. Some steps only required 1 screen (eg. the login) but other screens required several. (Seen below)
Sprint Day 3
Prototype. Build a realistic prototype.
It was a challenge to stick to the brief, as using the existing Unilodge design language was not my normal style. I used the existing logo, colours, font, imagery, and tried to adhere to the existing UI style. I made sure that the roommate feature would exist as a main menu item but added the small blurb on the homepage to explain to users what that icon stood for.
Some interactions that may get lost in the main goal and content of the page is that of the following…
- In the profile page, there are 2 checkboxes already selected, one saying that the app will send the users notifications of bonding exercises or ideas to do (such as cooking a meal together, spending the day together, or simply sitting and watching a movie together.)
- The second checkbox states that app will send the user anniversary reminders, such as ‘it is you and your roommates 1 year anniversary of moving in together.’
These 2 interactions keep the users involved with the app even after finding a compatible roommate, making this app not just a one-time use. This feature could make the roommate experience better.
Sprint Day 4
Test. Test your prototype with 5 target customers.
I tested my prototype with 5 target customers. I chose my user testers because they were all around the ages of students, and either attend university, or could attend university.
3 of the main things pointed out by my user testers were…
- Consistency
- Sizing
- Visual hierarchy
After taking into consideration what each user tester said, I then edited and improved my prototype, creating the final model!
Conclusion
Various pages of my final solution can be seen down below, it is fully interactable and resembles how the final product would function and look like.
I believe this feature of the app improves the existing app, as students now have the availability and choice to find someone, they are compatible with, saving them and ‘Unilodge’ themselves, the hassle of moving students around.
I learned the new prototyping software ‘Figma’. Much like Adobe XD, this software was simple, organised and self-explanatory. It was easy to learn, and I was quick to adapt to it. I loved the layout and organisation of layers, and the fact that it self-saved and was online.
Another thing I learned through the user testing was that I need to work on visual hierarchy in apps. I need to understand it and better apply it in my future projects.
If I had the creative freedom to change Unilodge’s aesthetic, I would do that differently. I think the design of the app is a little outdated, and while its simple design is easy to use, a much more modern, interesting and eye-catching design could have been produced.
