Find My Roommates
Prommuni
user needs research | information architecture | wireframe + prototype design
Role
UX Designer
UI Designer
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Timeline
Feb 2023 - Ongoing
Tools Used
Figma
Notion
Project Background
Prommuni is the first professional social networking platform for the residential sharing economy. Prommuni’s goal is to support the professional and personal lives of young professionals by matching them to potential roommates and creating an online space to from social and career growth connections.
How I came onto the project
I joined the Prommuni team as a UX designer in Feb 2023 through connections with the founder, a fellow UMD alum
The Difficulties of Relocation
Disconnected Experience
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Moving to a new city as a young professional is a complex process. We found that users tended to navigate across multiple websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, in the process of relocation—which can be exasperating
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Lonely Young Adulthood
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Young adulthood can be lonely. For many people transitioning from college to their first job in a new city, it can be extremely difficult to find friends and establish a new community. However, a vital touchpoint where young professionals begin to form their new social circles is through the people with whom they live.
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Professional & Social
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The needs of relocation can be both professional and social. Through our personal experience, we know that roommates are a great way to create new relationships, and an important way to expand professional networks through the connections of new roommates and friends.
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Prommuni's Solution
Disconnected Search Experience
Roommate Matching Algorithm
​Based on user-provided data like job, industry, social habits, and relocation preferences, etc., Prommuni’s algorithm matches each user to potential roommates that would be most compatible with them and encourages them to chat and get to know one another better. They will also be able to align on housing and living preferences as part of the matching process.
Difficulty Forming Connections
Roommate Group Creation
Users can form housing groups with other professions with whom they match to solidify relocation plans, and to search for additional roommates together.
Through chat, roommates can connect over mutual interests, career goals, and get to know one another better
Problem Statements
What is the most efficient way for users to find compatible roommates and to form roommate groups?
What is important for young professionals in their roommate search and relocation process?
How are roommate groups and arrangements normally formed?
Research
In order to refine the current matching process and create a cohesive experience for group creation, I needed to understand the needs of users who are looking to find roommates/housemates. I conducted secondary research on the most common current way young professionals look for housing arrangements.
Facebook Housing Groups
What is important for young professionals in their roommate search and relocation process?
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Housing type, beds and baths, location, rent price, amenities, move in dates, utilities, property photos
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brief description of roommates and/or pets
Relocation Factors
User Behavior
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Users DM and comment on housing or roommate group listings to express interest.
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Users occasionally posts in search of housing property
Experience Flaws
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Most posts are very housing-detail heavy - there's often little information on the roommate and would require users to research or to reach out and chat.
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Posts often do not include information on other housemates/roommates
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There is occasionally inconsistent information in the post
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There is no specific formatting. No way to search or filter by amenities/housing types
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Posts often require reposting for visibility due to algorithm not showing it to everyone
Similarly, the matching and social aspects of our app are similar to that of dating apps like Hinge or Coffee Meets Bagel. I conducted comparative research to see how profiles and matching process of these apps can be applied to our user flow
Hinge Dating App
Matching & Profile Features
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Robust matching algorithm based on user-designated “non-negotiables” like age, religion, height, etc.
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User profile is focused on the main “stats” of age, gender, location, and education.
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Includes option to connect profileto social media
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Includes option to hide profile to take a break from matching
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Users are given prompts and icebreakers to respond to on their profiles that encourage conversations and to show more personality
Interview
To get a more detailed perspective, I interviewed 5 young professionals who have recently relocated to a new city or have searched for roommates and asked about their processes of looking for a new living arrangement.
"What’s important for you in looking for a roommate, community, friends?"
Someone with good living habits, nice to get along with.
Someone with a similar culture or background as me
Someone in the same industry or profession as I am.
"What was difficult when you were looking for a roommate?"
It can be hard to sift through all the Facebook posts to find a group or property that fits all my needs
It's tricky to find a roommate who's a good fit with me, and can be a risk to find the wrong one.
I have to negotiate with roommates to figure out property details and move in logistics that work for all of us.
Current User Experience
Persona
Scenario
Tessa decides to move to San Diego and begins to researches living spaces on Zillow. She talks to her friends about moving, didn’t know anyone in San Diego. She joinsa a Facebook housing group. but feels overwhelmed by the posts and frustrated by the specific requirements for her pet.
Finally, she joins Prommuni. Tessa fills out her relocation and personal information, including her pet, social drinking habits, and preferences for her roommates' habits. She is matched with another young woman at her company with a condo, and the two chat about their preferences for a few days before the young woman invites Tessa to join a private group.
Together, they find another roommate to join their group. They Negotiate living details like rent, utilities, and rules, and finally move in after 3 months.
Design Solution
Goal
To address the main user needs of finding well-fitting roommates and accommodations and building social and professional connections, we decided to highlight many of these user traits as part of the user profile
Needs
Solutions & Features
A centralized place to see personal and relocation information on every user
Transparent Attributes
Each user profile will be required to list traits like age, gender, profession, and hometown. There will also be a lighlighted section for living preferences like no drinking, smoking, or pets.
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Social Media & Icebreaker Prompts
Embedded Instagram feeds will add to the personality of each user. Short prompts that users can choose to enter will show tidbits about their interests and hobbies
Quickly find roommates with compatible users without combing through all the listings and users
Filtering Function
In addition to the matching algorithm, we will build filters for social and personal attributes to allow users more control over users and groups that are recommended to them
Get to know all the roommates of an existing roommate group more efficiently
Roommate Cards
Roommate user profiles will be listed as part of the group so that it's easy to get a quick overview of who everyone in the group is.
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Group Summary Attributes
Each group will display summary traits such as the age range of the group, gender, professions, etc.,
User Flow Architecture
Prototypes & Testing
I created high-fidelity prototypes of the desktop version of the site using Figma, following the screens and processes of our user flow.
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As the UX/UI designer, I left detailed notes and comments on the file in order to communicate to the engineers how exactly to build out the interactions and flows of the designs.
We synced up on a weekly basis for me to walk the engineering team through my vision, and for them to ask my questions about edge cases that they come across so that I can return to the prototype to iterate on my designs based on their feedback.
User Profile
After onboarding, the user profile will display:
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Social habits, personal traits, and housing preferences of the user to get a quick snapshot of who they are and if they can be a good roommate fit. Icebreaker prompts and Instagram posts to allow other users to see their personalities better without having to research on other platforms.
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If the user already has a housing arrangement in place, they will be able to show their housing details through a separate tab on the profile as well.
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Filtering Function
On their dashboards, users can see the profiles with whom they've been matched with based on their preferences. As an additional control, users can also filter their match results based on relocation, professional and demographic details.
Roommate Group Formation
Users can also toggle on their dashboards to see which groups they've been matched with, then request to join those groups.
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Upon clicking into a group, users can also see the individual profiles of each roommate so that they can quickly understand what each member is like.
Testing
Our team is in the process of conducting user tests on the prototypes of user dashboard, onboarding, profiles, and group creation.
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To gather usability insights, I created a set of testing protocols, including user test goals, a critical logging sheet, and a post-test questionnaire that will be scored based on the System Usability Scale (SUS).
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User test goals include the following tasks:
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Create a group as a user with a property already, then go back and change the social preferences in the settings of the group
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Find 2 users at the same company without pets and with compatibility scores >80% to join the group. Add the users to the group and then make one of them group admin
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Remove the user who was made admin from your group and approve another user who requested to join, then make her admin
Reflection
This was my first time working on a work-in-progress product as a UX designer, and I learned a lot about communicating between the past designer, product lead, and engineers. By learning about past challenges and team goals, I was able to bridge the gap between the current and desired states of the product by thinking of ways that we can improve the current process.
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What went well
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​I was able to create interactions and prototypes for a wide variety of user needs, such as filtering, profile views, and form fill.
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The breadth of the interactions needed for Prommuni helped me to get practice ideating how all of these user processes can intersect, and communicating with the team on how to best direct the user through these steps.
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What can improve
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​Due to limitations of a small team, I wish we could have gotten more input from other designers about how different interactions can be designed.
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I also would have liked to conduct more testing through the prototyping process. Being able to receive feedback from a group of users would be very helpful to our iteration process, but due to limited resources we unfortunately are only able to test our designs on a very limited basis.