NEST: Find your off-campus housing

UXUI
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The goal of NEST is to build a housing searching community for college students. Starting off from my own pain point, I tried to create a website prototype that can help college students suffering from housing searching issues.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Research | Design | Analysis
Timeline
September 2022 -
THE CHALLANGE
College students face too many issues when looking for housing.
As an international student, my first issue with studying abroad was to rent a private room. There are too many platforms to refer to, real estate websites are not student-friendly, and how would I filter out scams?
I tried hard to get a decent room for me to stay at least for one year, and I failed. Many of my friends went through the same horrible process. What can I do to help other college students to improve their housing searching experience?
OUTCOME
Bringing scattered housing platforms into one
  • A whole list of available rent : Real estate website + student housing website + Facebook housing groups
  • Look for roommates or housemates on NEST community
  • Leave reviews so that you can help others filter out scams.
Specifically for college students
  • Areas categorized by university. Students can search for their school instead of zip code or address.
  • Grid and highlight on the campus area on the map let users know the distance between the room and the campus.
  • Optimized filters serve for college students' needs: Search by room type, home type, covered utilities, etc.
Residents community based on campus
  • Share your thoughts and tips about the off-campus housing life.
  • Look for roommates or housemates that fit your lifestyle and budget.
Avoid scams through reviews
  • Leave reviews on rooms, houses, apartments, managements, and landlords.
  • Legitimate the process by checking others' reviews.

NEST

RESEARCH
Survey
Which part was frustrating when searching for housing?
In a survey where university students were asked about their university housing searching experiences, 43.3% of the students said it was bad, 16.7% of them describing it as ‘extremely bad’. Reasons varied as following chart.
I found 4 main insights / pain points from the survey...
1. Too many platforms

From real estate websites to Facebook, there are too many online platforms to constantly check for new updates. Furthermore, students had to go see reviews on Google Maps or search keywords on Reddit to see what others think.

2. Hard to find rooms for rent

Even though students go and see available rent on real estate websites, most of them are rented by flat while many students need a private or shared room. Facebook housing group is popular way to find a room but it is hard to recognize scams or frauds on social media.

3. Where to find trustworthy roommates?

62% of survey participants found their roommates or housemates via their friends' or acquaintances' referral. But, what about the ones with no friend in the area?

4. We want reviews!

Many of us always go check Yelp before going to a restaurant to make sure the food will be good. Why not for the room that you will reside at least for a year? It is hard to find and connect previous tenants and ask questions about the rooms, but it should be easier.

PERSONA
SITE MAP

‍To convey 4 insights that I found from the survey, I created 5 main pages for the website :
‍Search | For landlords | For tenants | Community | About us.

WIREFRAMES
After a few sketches, I created low-fidelity wireframes to conduct a simple usability study with my friends. More pages were added later for high-fidelity wireframes.
TESTING & IMPROVEMENTS
These are the improvements after a short testing.
Eliminating unnecessary components
First, I removed the side menu because all menu are easily accessible in the same page, from the top menu bar and sub tool bar. In this way, I could utilize more spaces for main components.
Adding more graphics
Secondly, Instead of a simple table format, I added more graphics for visual and information purposes. By adding more components on each row, users can access more functions in the same page.
More information on one sight
Originally I assigned one post for each row on roommates / housemates seeking page but then received feedback that it will be better to see more posts. Indeed, the main goal of the page is to find specific person that matches with users. So, it will better serve as grid format.
Filter is the key
Just like searching for a room,  roommates or housemates should match the user's needs. So I replaced profile box on the left to a filter box.
Go explore NEST yourself! [Adobe XD]
NEST is an on-going project. There are so many more to be done!
Although it started from my own experience, I believe it can benefit a lot of people as well. It is certainly not easy to start a new phase of your life in a different country or state, and getting a housing is a big part of it. I want to make this project happen in real life, instead of being satisfied what I've done so far. I'm planning to continue working on NEST next semester as my capstone project, possibly collaborating with developers. That way I hope I can learn more about how to collaborate and communicate with engineers and other team members as UX designer!
NEST project timeline
1. Research on target audience's pain points through survey on college students.
2. Create paper wireframe.
3. Create low-fidelity wireframe on Adobe XD.
4. Conduct a usability test.
5. Improve designs and create a high-fidelity prototype on Adobe XD.
6. Another usability test.
7. Collaborate with engineers to make it happen...?
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