Roomie: A Roommate matching service

Under the course ‘Service Design’ at the School of Visual Arts, my teammates (Uijun Park, Junyue Hua) and I designed a roommate matching service called ROOMIE for International students. The course aimed to design a service which can offer new opportunities in the market. During the pre-research, we found out accommodation for international students can be a niche market. So my team focused on current problems when they found an accommodation. Through various research, we came up with a possible solution to the problem. Finally, we suggested a service, ROOMIE, a roommate matching service which can be a way to solve the problem, verifying housing conditions and the credibility of roommates.

Year2015AffiliationSVA MFA Interaction DesignRoleConcept development, UI/UX, Visual DesignCollaboratorsUijun Park, Junyue HuaLinkvimeo.com

Finding room in NYC is finding roommates
Through various research methods including interviews, mega trend research and market analysis,
we found that for international students, finding housing means finding roommates. However, there are lack of reliable
services to support this. So international students struggle to verify housing condition and reliability of roommates.
How might we reduce their worries when they find room & roommates?
Based on the research finding, we decided to create a roommate matching service for international students.
From user journey map to wireframe, we developed core features of our service
such as a smart recommendation system, language select option, built-in messenger, E-contract and more.
The 1st Roommate service for international students in NYC
ROOMIE is an exclusive app for international students.
ROOMIE helps international students to find rooms and roommates easily and enables them
to settle down in a new environment much easier than any other service.
Various Languages Supported
Users can choose their nationality and use the service
in their native language. Based on this setting, users can find
roommates who come from the same country.
Smart Recommendation
Based on similarity of lifestyle, personality and hobbies,
we recommend possible rooms and roommates. By indicating
matching percent, we help users to find the best roommate.
Easy Communication
Through a built-in messenger and video call service,
room providers and room seekers can easily communicate with
each other and verify if they can become good roommates.
Credible E-contract
Room-seekers and room-providers can make a contract
in ROOMIE system. We hold the deposits until room-seekers
finally settle down so they don’t have to worry about fraud.