Dormpal

Easing the student housing search process
UI/UX Design
Product Management
Chrome Extension

personal project worked on with 1 other designer using the housing crisis prompt from the 2023 Design for Change challenge

UX Designer/ Product Manager

Feb 2023 - May 2023
(4 months)

Date
Role
Project Type

Project Overview

Problem

Searching for student housing is difficult, stressful and time consuming

A study from CIBC states that 300,000 Canadian students are short of homes and some paying even more than 25% than the average Canadian renter to secure housing. This is due to increased rent, decreased availability of housing, poor quality of housing and high competition to find housing.

"

I heard that there was someone who couldn’t find housing this term and so resorted to sleeping in the university

Since the housing crisis problem is vast, the problem space was narrowed to helping students in the housing search process.

Solution

Chrome Extension - a tool that works with everything that is already out there

A chrome extension that can be connected to postings on any platform and help filter through postings and find reputable housing whether searching individually or in groups. Some of the key features are as follows -

Filters and Favourites pages
Filter and Save Posts
  • Receive only relevant posts in the “for you” page, reducing scroll time on platforms such as facebook to find posts
  • Easily access any saved posts through the “favourites” page
Groups feature
Add roommate groups
  • Filter postings with different combinations of group members
  • Share favourited postings
  • Create shared checklists
Notifications feature and home page with general information and facts on housing
Notifications and Housing Information
  • Connect to social media housing groups for the extension to keep up with posts
  • Get notified through, email, message and browser pop-ups on updates, alerts and any new posts available on the “for you” page
Reviews feature
Reviews
  • View peer reviews for each posting and management
  • Student reviews found online and posted using the extension
  • Connects back to the value put on other student opinions and suggestions based on their housing experiences
Summarize postings feature
Summarize Postings

Summarize and check reviews of postings live when on a social media page or housing group

discovery

What aspect of this housing crisis should be the focus and what are the key pain points that can be tackled?
step 1

Competitive Analysis

The first step was looking into current student housing platforms to understand the general layout, information included and features provided. Further, research was done to evaluate commonly used student housing platforms. This process led to the following insight -

Insight:

Students don't always use these stand alone student housing platforms to look for housing.

student housing platforms vs most popular platforms to search for student housing
step 2

User Research

To delve deeper into the problem and move beyond secondary background research, primary user research through surveys were conducted. This survey garnered 23 responses and encompassed of people who have both been successful and unsuccessful in their housing search.

student housing survey cover page
step 3

Affinity Mapping

The responses were then grouped using affinity mapping for each of the questions. This allowed for an easier visualization of the main themes and key findings from the survey. It also helped us start brainstorming product feature ideas that connected to the takeaways of the survey results.

affinity mapping for a question in the survey
step 4

Empathy Mapping

An empathy map was further created to connect to the user and uncover the root causes of the problem. We wanted to ensure that we were really digging deeper, and beyond the surface level of what we could see from our research.

empathy map

Key Findings

The great volume of posts on social media such as facebook groups make it the main source for housing
High competition makes it hard to secure housing in time, in particular housing for groups
Students value other student and family opinions during their housing search process
Many things are unknown about the housing process, especially for first time housing seekers.

ideation

How might we make it easier to browse through all the information that is already there, make it reliable, informative yet less stressful?

The Idea ... A chrome extension

A chrome extension that works in the background and can be connected to postings on any other platform. In this way, we are not just adding on to the list of platforms that are already available and aren't really used.

Goals for the extension:
  • Filter through postings on current platforms
  • Find housing in groups
  • Verify the reputability of a posting or management
  • Easily keep track of new postings, updates and important information

The Process

Competitive Analysis # 2

This round of competitive analysis involved reviewing other chrome extensions such as AdBlock and Honey to understand the general flows and interactions in chrome extensions as well give insight into information that was often present in modal view vs the expanded view.

User Flows

After getting a general understanding of what was included in existing extensions, and evaluating those against what we thought we should include as key features and pages in the chrome extension, user flows were created. This accounted for both, new user and returning user flows.

user flows

Sketches and Mid-Fis

After getting a general grasp on the user flows and direction of the chrome extension, the ideation process for designs began! This started with sketches, which were then translated to mid-fis and finally hi-fi mockups.

sketches and mid-fis example

Testing

A round of usability testing before finalizing the designs where users were given tasks to complete and asked general questions on their experiences with the prototype

Design Improvements

Clarifying the "groups" feature

From the testing it was discovered that housing the group information under the "Profile" page was unintuitive to participants. This was improved by implementing the following -

  • Creating a separate “connections” page to find information about adding groups and social media accounts
  • Including information about groups in the home page
moving the groups feature to its own page

Content Improvements

Another aspect of the testing asked for content that would be expected in the modal views and expanded pages. It was found that more information could be added to these. Some examples are as follows -

  • Adding options to filter through housing types and number of bathrooms
  • Solidifying information to be included in the preview version of the posting
adding more information in the filters page and the preview of postings

The Final Prototype

Design System

design system

Reflection

What I learned and what I would improve

Key Takeaways


Designing with intentionality - Thinking intentionally about different aspects of the extension. How would this interaction work? Is this really solving the user’s problem?
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Designing for both functionality and delight - especially in terms of content design. How might we improve the way we currently present the information in the filters page? How might we make content easy to visually scan through?

Next Steps

Due to the time constraints of the design challenge, as well as our own timelines for the project, there were still aspects of the chrome extension left to be completed -

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Implementing a full-fledged design system and unifying UI elements including illustrations

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Completing any unfinished interactions and testing!

Thanks for stopping by and let's connect!
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