Roomiez App Case Study
Moving to a new city on your own is often an exciting and momentous occasion, but it can also be full of challenges. That’s especially true if you don’t really know anybody and need to find a roommate.
Roomiez is an application for people who are visiting such unfamiliar cities to stay, either to study or start a new job and want a reliable way to find great roommates with similar interests to stay and connect with.
I started a small interview session with 3 of my friends who recently shifted cities/countries for various purposes. My main objective from this research session was to extract information, understand the problems they faced and what was the overall process and experience they had and what impact and outcome did it finally have. Are they really satisfied with the results ?
The main Target Audience in this case expands from students of age groups 18 and above who are pursuing undergrad to all the way upto working people of maximum age groups 35. This is because most of the people get married by that time and won’t live separately.
PAIN POINTS
After conducting the research I found that there were certain issues which were either common or had a real impact on the lives of people.
1. The fear of moving to a new city in itself is a huge task and finding that right person to live with just adds to the burden. For most introverts it becomes real difficult to adjust.
2. Safety and Trust is another very important factor. Most people don’t even know what their roommate even looks like, what is their background until they meet them face to face for the first time.
3. Fake Profiles : When I asked them they didn’t try any roommate finder app, I only got 2 types of answers. Either those apps/websites had too many fake profiles or there wasn’t enough information provided about the person.
4. Other reasons included messiness caused by their current roommates, not performing shared responsibilities or constantly bringing that third person at their place etc.
DESIGN SOLUTIONS
1. The app asks you to fill all your preferences for your future roommate at the start itself and lists all the available people based on those preferences. There is a percentage bar that shows how many common interests or preferences criteria were met by that individual. This might help you tell whether the person you are looking for is on your wavelength or not.
2. The app allows a chat feature where users can
contact the person whose profile you like. You can communicate and get to know the person in a much better way.
3. Before connecting to other individuals, you have to completely fill the verification process, which includes Uploading your ID/Aadhar, connecting social media profiles and linking your mobile number. This will maintain the genuineness of the app and make it free from any sort of fake profiles.
Refer to images to further check the mockups, research, personas, wireframes and user flows.