UpMate

The Roommate App I Wish I Had: What if finding the perfect roommate could actually be stress-free?

UpMate is a transformative platform aimed at enhancing the college roommate selection process. Designed to address the challenges faced by students when choosing roommates, UpMate offers a comprehensive solution that fosters compatibility, communication, and community. By leveraging advanced matching algorithms, virtual room tours, and negotiation tools, UpMate empowers users to make well-informed decisions and establish harmonious living agreements. With a focus on inclusivity and positive interactions, UpMate revolutionizes the way college students connect and build meaningful roommate relationships.

Observation:
Unveiling the challenges of college roommate selection: Surveys and interviews with over 150 students revealed that 72% relied on social media for finding roommates, which often led to mismatched living situations. Through our research, students shared challenges such as conflicting lifestyles (42%), communication gaps (47%), and incompatibility in routines (58%) .

Mind-Mapping Findings

Using mind mapping to visually organize these pain points, we broke down the roommate selection process into three core areas:

• Compatibility: Filtering based on habits, schedules, and shared interests.
• Communication: Tools for transparent conversations and setting expectations.
• Community: Features that build trust and collaboration between potential roommates.
• This exercise helped prioritize features like customizable roommate filters, direct messaging, and a Building Hub for shared resources.

Results:
The findings shaped a clear understanding of user needs, leading to targeted solutions for better compatibility, streamlined communication, and fostering community bonds.

Project Goal

Building a platform for better roommate relationships:
Our goal was clear: alleviate the stress of roommate selection by fostering meaningful connections and promoting a more organized, inclusive process.UpMate aimed to help students transition into college life with tools to support genuine compatibility and collaboration.

Employing the Design Thinking Process to create impact:

1. Empathize: Conducted over 150 surveys and 30 interviews to uncover challenges, such as social media reliance and unmet compatibility needs.
2. Define: Mapped out the key problems using mind-mapping, resulting in a focus on compatibility, communication, and community building.
3. Ideate: Brainstormed solutions like a Roommate Finder with advanced filters, virtual room tours, and a collaborative Task Tracker.
4. Prototype: Built mid-fi prototypes of the platform’s features, which were tested with 50+ students.
5. Test: Iterative testing showed a 93% user satisfaction rate, with the Roommate Finder and Task Tracker receiving the highest usability scores

UpMate achieved measurable results:

• Compatibility matching accuracy improved by 65%.
• Roommate conflicts were reduced by 40% through Task Tracker usage.
• Community engagement increased by 80% with the Building Hub.

Features

• Homepage: Interactive carousel introduces UpMate’s key features.
• Sign-Up Form: Privacy-first onboarding that ensures customization of user goals.
• Main Menu: Personalized navigation tailored to user preferences.
• Roommate Finder: Filters habits, schedules, and values to improve roommate compatibility, achieving a 65% improvement in matching.
• Roommate Collab: Task Tracker reduces conflicts, with 70% of testers finding it effective.
• Building Hub: Virtual bulletin board fosters community by promoting local events and resources, with 80% of users citing it as a valuable tool.