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The day is hot and sunny.
I see vendors with their fruit carts calling out to people to buy their products.
I see people talking to each other in different languages trying to understand each other and communicate.
On the sides of the bustling streets in South India, seeing fruit and vegetable vendors is not an uncommon sight. However, being a street vendor is not easy.
Who is our target audience?
Street vendors in Bangalore who sell fruit, vegetables and flowers, and working professionals living in the vicinity.
The day is hot and sunny.
I see vendors with their fruit carts calling out to people to buy their products.
I see people talking to each other in different languages trying to understand each other and communicate.
On the sides of the bustling streets in South India, seeing fruit and vegetable vendors is not an uncommon sight. However, being a street vendor is not easy.
Who is our target audience?
Street vendors in Bangalore who sell fruit, vegetables and flowers, and working professionals living in the vicinity.
On the sides of the bustling streets in South India, seeing fruit and vegetable vendors is not an uncommon sight. However, these vendors face a lot of difficulties - unable to sell their produce, don’t know where the demand lies and dealing with language barriers.
FIND MY FLATMATE
Helping people find rooommates based on mutual things they cannot tolerate
How might we help people find potential flatmates based on things they dislike?
SKILLS
User Research, Wireframing, Style Guide, UX + UI Design, Prototyping and User Testing
DURATION
3 months
STATUS
Completed
TEAM
Nethra Gomatheswaran
SNEAK PEEK
Matching people based on things they cannot tolerate was an insight I uncovered during my user research. From my research, I found that people tend to be more honest about the things they dislike over the things they like. Read the following case study to understand how I arrived at the solution, and why I believe this solution can help people find better flatmates.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Why should there be another flatmate app?
Moving to a new city is tedious. In cities like New York, where staying with flatmates is a common occurrence, people are in search of others with the same wavelength to share a roof with. 'Find my flatmate' is an application that helps people find like-minded people they can live with, matching people with criteria that's different than what's been done right now. Taking to people who have previously lived or currently live with flatmates revealed that almost all of them had issues with flatmates they did not know prior to moving in. They take a leap of faith after looking at the image that people project of themselves online on roommate apps, only to lead to problems in 90% of the cases, which got me to thinking that:
"People need a way to find like-minded people and validate if the potential flatmates are who they say they are."
USER INSIGHTS
What findings were uncovered?
USER INTERVIEWS + USER JOURNEY
Why do people still find bad roommates despite all the roommate apps out there?
I spoke to about 8 people, from different age groups, varied backgrounds, personalities, and career paths. In addition to the research, I observed how potential flatmates interact with the first time and the conversations that they have and uncovered very interesting insights. The following flow is from contextual observation of when I tagged along with my friend as she went to meet a potential flatmate.
WHAT WENT WRONG HERE
This application (in progress) is content heavy and the users would have to make decisions to navigate through the app based on what they read. As the paper prototypes did not have much content that was written down and had filler content, I decided to move on to mid-fi testing.
USER INSIGHTS
What findings were uncovered?
Sketching out a few concepts with mid-fidelity wireframes helped me put ideas on digital screens. This was then tested with a few target users and the results from this round of testing provided insights for upcoming rounds of iterations.
How can we define the personality of the brand?
SOLUTION
USER INSIGHTS
What findings were uncovered?
Speaking to people about their experience using other roommate matchmaking apps, and checking the apple store for complaints, I came up with a raw, new way of looking at this problem.
WHAT WENT WRONG HERE
People misunderstood the limitation of the application and expected different content than what was displayed. They compared this application to any other housing application in the market, which was not the goal of Find my Roommate. I wanted to focus more on finding the right people to live with.
STYLE GUIDE
These reviews, given by previous flatmates are also validation whether a said user is who they say they are.
In this section, a person lists his/her/their best qualities as a flatmate and is rated on those qualities.
Apart from seeing just the basics like move-in dates and neighborhoods, a person can see what other people cannot tolerate and find mutual ground.
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Nethra Gomatheswaran 2020
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