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2018 School Project / An App For Roommates
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dormie
“A simple way for students to know their roommates’ whereabouts can help save time and be convenient.”
The Ideas
This was my first experience living with three roommates, and each of us comes from a different country. In this culturally-diverse living situation, everyone is unfamiliar with others’ daily routines and habits. Sometimes others make noises annoying me simply because I’m being too quiet at home and they didn’t know. But in fact, I was lying on my bed and didn’t want to get up.
Besides, we are sometimes curious about anyone at home so they can give us a hand to pick up our packages or give or take a free ride to the market together.
Why Dormie?
Every roommate has a different schedule where they might disturb each other's daily routine.
"I might make some noise in the room, but I am worried that they are at home at that time."
"I want to take the shuttle home with her together, but I have to wait for her reply."
"I don't have a car, but I need someone picking me up to market if they're free."
"It's embarrassing to knock on the doors to ask somebody if they are at home."
…
I was trying to help the roommates get help from each other based on knowing the presence of one another by this function. Connecting with roommates can save time, provide life convenience and enhance roommates' relationships.
Solution
The Dormie app tracks the users' mostly visited locations, such as school, home, and grocery, to share with their roomies, which provides convenience to each other so they can decide what to do for the following schedule more quickly.
Approach
Cute UI!
I tried to use a bold and clean color system to build this interface more clearly for users, as this product is designed for students. To show the teenager's personality, I create the illustrations of houses selected, emojis status or avatars to create the energetic and young stylish in the design.
Essense Breakdown
Homepage
Creating Status
To help roommates know about each others’ different schedules well and decrease unnecessarily troublesome. A function allows users to create their real-time emoji showing their status to bring fun. Such as “I’m sleeping, I’m working, and I’m boring…. “
My Dormie Tour
Hey! I’m Sherry. This is my first time using the Dormie app. Let’s have a tour of the Dormie app together!
1. JOINING THE CIRCLE
How smooth and pretty the onboarding experiences (NUX design) are!
After a quick signing up, I joined the Dorm Circle that Namhee had created by entering the associated Circle Invite-Code.
2. SHARING LOCATIONS
Left-hand Side: Location Customization
Now, I see the circle has set three Locations.
I can change the ordering of my preferences and set HOME as the first one on my homepage. And more importantly, I can adjust my Location Scope of HOME, which could be shared with my other roommates. I want to be more honest with my roommates, so afterall I choose the most accurate scope.
Well, what if sometimes I suddenly don’t want to share my location? It’s pretty easy to turn it off temporarily or permanently whenever I want, and they won’t know ;)
Right-hand Side: Styling!
To make this experience beautiful, each place need to select a home illustration as a sign
3. CHECK LOCATION
At present, it’s convenient to know the Juile and Namhee is at HOME, Andrea and I is at SCHOOL, and no one is at WEGMANS
4. CREATE STATUS
Today, I baked some biscuits, so I would like to share them with my roomies! And I got Namhee is sleeping right now. This function helps roommates to know more about each other’s schedules quickly.
5. INTELLIGENT CHAT
It intelligently provides the common sentences for roommates! I don’t need to type for a long while anymore! And I also could back-up other common sentences for future usage.
Homepage Iteration
Identity System
My Takeaway
During the design iterations and getting feedback from classmates, I found out that there is a lot to consider when designing a location-sharing platform for roommates. Everyone cares about our privacy, and we don’t want to be tracked by others. Since this project concept addressed one or multiple aspects of college life, how to make the dormitory, this small community, and get along with each other better is what I was trying to solve.
After I finished this work, I found an issue that users won’t like to know about others’ status by opening this app every time. So, maybe auto-sending notification to show who is at home right now, or someone creates a status blah blah… is another solution for convenience.
