Designing harmony in shared living spaces: A streamlined solution for housemate communication, chores, and expenses.
Role:
Sole UX Designer
Timeline:
July 2023 - August 2023
Tools:
Figma, Miro, Zoom, Pen & Paper
Overview
Problem Space
Messy roommates? Join the club.
ChatGPT said:ChatGPTPeople in shared living spaces often struggle with communication due to busy schedules and varying responsibilities, leading to frustration over differing expectations, chore duties, and uneven shared expenses.
Solution
Streamline house management with UpKeep.
I designed Upkeep, a mobile app for tracking chore delegation, managing communal grocery lists, and shared expenses, targeting adults living with roommates, like college students and young professionals.
Final Solutions
01. Chore rotation and assignment
The chore rotation feature allows housemates to view which chores they were assigned to, a description of the tasks for each chore, and the option to rotate assignments based on the user's discretion. Users can check off tasks after completion.
02. Communal grocery list
The communal grocery list allows users to easily access items needed for the house while shopping. When users select an item they have purchased, the item is automatically assigned to the primary user to later be referenced when calculating reimbursement.
03. Track shared expenses
The Bills page includes a section for Active Bills and another for Settled Bills. This distinction promotes full transparency, and allows users to view information regarding when payment was completed by other housemates, and which bills are still pending payment.
Empathize
User Survey
20 participants belonging to the target user group were surveyed regarding their house maintenance habits and communal living situations.
55%
reported never having a house meeting throughout communal living experience
50%
of users reported no method of chore distribution
45%
reported unequal distribution of financial responsibility for communal items
The research question at this stage became:
Which areas of house management do users face the most trouble with?
User Interview
3 user interviews were conducted to uncover pain points and gather insights on user motivations and challenges in managing shared households.
User 1
“We used a groupchat to discuss the amount to be reimbursed for bills. Sometimes people don’t read or miss text messages, so that became an issue.”
User 2
“It sometimes felt awkward to be venmo requesting for common items, so I would cover the expense myself. Eventually, those expenses added up.”
User 3
“As friends, we assumed we could communicate clearly, and not meeting frequently meant we weren’t taking time to reflect what was bothering us.”
Key Findings
Distribution of Responsibility
Housemates completed chores sporadically, leading to unfair distribution of responsibilities
Tracking Reimbursement
Communal items were often purchased by one or two people, and there was no method of tracking costs or reimbursement
Lack of Communication
Differing friendship dynamics led to communication issues regarding basic house maintenance
Define
User Persona & Empathy Map
Using findings from the user research phase, I was able to further deepen my understanding for users' pain points through developing a User Persona and Empathy Map, and defining the primary problem I was designing for.
Ideate
Information Architecture
The proposed information architecture was created to visualize the product infrastructure, and how users might complete their goals through a layout of the mobile platform. This was iterated upon multiple times throughout the design process, based on feedback from users during usability testing.
User Task Flows
Key task flows were developed to ensure that all the necessary screens and features were present in the product hierarchy, prior to beginning the design phase. The flows confirmed that users would be able to accomplish their end goals with the proposed layout of the product.
User Journey Map
The user journey map was then created to demonstrate how users might feel after interacting with the proposed platform, to identify any areas to improve the user experience and help them reach their goals.
Prototype
Paper Wireframes
Guided by the discoveries in the Ideation phase, I created paper wireframes to rapidly iterate possible designs for the layout of the app. The image below is the final version of wireframes, developed after many rounds of iteration and feedback from users.
Low Fidelity Prototypes
After testing visual placement of images and information, I selected the top designs from the paper wireframes and began to create low fidelity prototypes.
Test & Iterate
Usability Testing
I conducted a Usability Test using the low fidelity prototypes to identify potential design flaws and create a more intuitive solution. The results helped diagnose obstacles in the information architecture and task flows that were preventing users from accomplishing their goals.
3 moderated usability tests were conducted via Zoom over a course of 2 days. The tests consisted of 10 tasks that users were required to complete. User interactions with the prototype and any difficulties completing tasks were observed and taken into consideration during redevelopment of prototypes.
Dashboard
Chores
Grocery List
Bills
Reflections
Global Accessibility
One aspect to explore further would be incorporating different currencies, so that people outside of the US, or regions that have a different primary currency would be able to use the app as well.
User Encouragement
Another avenue that I would explore is designing some sort of reward system to encourage users to complete tasks within the app, such as completing a chore or paying a bill.
