ezmate - hero

- EZMate -
roommate search made easy

END TO END Product AND EXPERIENCE Design
01

Overview

About
EZMATE is an app for making your roommate search easy and delightful. The product is designed keeping in mind the needs of users looking for an apartment/roommate in the Bay Area. The goal is to provide the user and end to end experience and making the journey easier.
Type
Personal | In class project
Role
Product Designer
Duration
Spring 2020
Tools
Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign
02

preliminaries

ezmate-problem

Finding a compatible roommate is harder that it seems like.

When you want to move to a new place, or your current roommate is moving out, searching for someone new is a big challenge.
Also, there’s so many platforms where people list ads, but it’s very difficult from a users point of view to screen so many ads and listings and revisit them for reference later.
03

research

Surveys

Facts and numbers
I looked up the problem that I faced and wanted to address. These surveys helped me to understand that this is a genuine problem people are facing and the experience could be improved.

Competitive Analysis

Let's compare what's in market
Majority of users currently used FB Marketplace and Craigslist to find listings of spots in the apartments and also to post about availability. I did a heuristic evaluation and jotted down the pros and cons of these platforms.
FB Marketplace
PROS:
- Better reach
- Easy Listing
- Listing can be shared with others
CONS:
- Have to go through a lot of listings to see if all of your needs are checked off
- Irrelevant ads or popups
- No way to verify the ads for scammers or ratings/reviews to read through
Craigslist
PROS:
- Better reach
- Easy Listing
- Very well known
CONS:
- added effort of reading entire description to match needs
- No easy contact options to keep a track of conversations
- Many scammers and no way to verify.
- UI is very confusing, not user-friendly.

User Interviews

Key insights
Gathering views of users through surveys and interviews the following were the needs and concerns of the users.
key insights

Personas

Who are the users?
Based on our key insights, I defined target audience to guide me through my design decisions.
04

Proposed solution

What can we achieve?

Take compatibility quiz
As you signup, take the quiz and it will use your answers to calculate your match percentage and find you the most compatible roommate.
Profile Page :
where people can build their profiles and allow them to express themselves for others to read. You can connect your social media to this so that people can verify your profile.
Post listings :
just like any other social media post
Search and Contact :
Filter based on house / roommates, Save those to your favorites to refer later/shortlist, Pin the Room ad to the conversations
Future scope :
A way to rate/ post reviews the roommates based on the interaction so others are
aware of their traits.
solution-left
ezmate-solution
05

Branding

Naming options

Name options and initial logo sketches
I sketched out a few logo ideas following the naming options.
naming options
logo - sketches

Logo

Final Logo and App Icon
Illustrated the horizontal and vertical variation of Logo along with App icon.
logo-horizontal
favicon
logo-vertical

Brand Guidelines

Clearspace and minimum size. The logo color variations for full color, one color and reverse.

Styleguide

Defined the style guide and iconography.
06

PLanning

IA Mapping

Created Information Architecture for building user flows and journey.

User Flows

Task 1: Onboarding
Create an onboarding experience for Grace on the EZMATE App

Task 2: Match and Chat
Check match score with people and initiate a conversation

Task 3: Save Listings
Go through listings and save for future reference

07

Solution

The Happy Path

08

Promotions

Landing Page

Designed a landing page for App Promotions and information about how it works.

Advertising Posters

Designed Advertising posters with catchy copy that could attract our target audience. These would be a part of the promotions in universities and subway spots.

Collaterals

This is a branding promotional kit received via mail as welcoming hamper.
09

summary

Final Prototype

Check the figma prototype here and let me know what you think.
Designed and created by ✨ Shiny Fernandes.