Research: High Rent | Portfo. of BrianZ

High Rent: Affordable Housing For Student

UX Research

Project Type: Team project. Role: UX Researcher, Interviewer, Testing drafter Teammates: Seungjun C. & Han J. Timeline: March 2021 - May 2021. Tools: Figma, Zoom, Mural, Google tools Skills: Design research, Journey Mapping

Overview

The high housing rent had always been a burden for many students.

In this project, our team would be conducting a series of research on the subject of high rent and ultimately propose a solution that could theoretically solve the problem.

Overview

Challenge

'Many students nowadays are still struggling with their living expenses. Housing rent being a big part of the spending are always creating pressure and stress for students.'

What can we do to help these students?

Challenge

Process

Background & Secondary Research

To fully understand the subject we will be dealing with, we kicked off the project by starting a background research on housing-related issues that students frequently encounter.

Our first goal was to prepare for a user interview that would help us form ideas for the final solution. We created a document to gather materials that might help us, and we started to draft ideas and questions for the upcoming interview.

View Document

After the research, we identified our target audiences. And we created a recruitment criteria for our interviewees.

● Students who have experience of living off-campus housing.
● Have pressure to pay rent

Recruitment Criteria

Research

Survey

Our team then started a survey to better understand high rent's impact on students.

26

participants
via Google Form

Here is the questions and responses of the survey:

Screen Shot 2022-03-27 at 9.31.15 AM.png

We filtered the participants down from 26 people to 20 people based on our recruitment criteria. And we identified these rest 20 people to be our target audiences.

Summary

Most of the participants are renting.

Most of the participants can pay for their housing and 38% of the participants can pay for living just fine.

Most of the participants are current students.

Most of the participants choose their current housing due to budget reasons. Half of the participants also indicated their housing preference is better commuting location.

Over half of the participants spent over 30% of their living cost on housing, and over one fourth of participants are spending over 50%.

Most of the participants lower their spending by reducing their utility bill and sharing their housing with roommates.

Most of the participants chose the numbers over 5 to indicate their pressure level.

Interview

We need more specific details of the subject. So, we invited 4 target audiences from the survey to join our interview.

4

participants
via ZOOM Meeting

We tried to keep interviewees engaged throughout the interview, so we came up with an interview method, interviewing with games.

Here are the games and interviewees' responses

Analysis of the Responses

Students who suffer from rent want to leverage for long-term stability in life.

Students who don't work or depend on their parents for housing expenses have less knowledge and limited access to finding housing aid sites.

Despite the financial restriction, students and recent grads want to live nearby which has public transportation or is within walking distance.

People who share a room with close friends are more likely to treat themselves with a lower standard of living.

Interview

Survey

Through the interview, we figured a key problem:

'Students have little willingness and knowledge and limited access to find housing aid or support.'

Persona

We then created a persona to represent the target audiences.

User Journey Map

After that, we created a user journey map to address the possible problems and opportunities throughout a student's moving experience.

Screen Shot 2022-03-27 at 7.26.24 PM.png

We also created a problem statement that narrowed down the subject.

Problem Statement

I am an university student who has a limited budget(works part time, gets limited financial support from parent) and lives in first-time off campus housing.

I am trying to keep up with my grade and my life as a university students.

But it's difficult to pursue as the rent becomes unaffordable.

Because I was not given the information from institutions/university and It's hard to get suitable resources in a single package as the sites are all individually separated and descriptions are not intuitive.

Which makes me feel frustrated and concerned if it affects students' school life.

User Testing

Near the end, our team proposed 6 solutions and had interviews with 5 target audiences. We were going to hear from them and decided one solution as the final solution for the subject.

5

participants
via ZOOM Meeting

Here are our questions to participants

Screen Shot 2022-03-27 at 8.52.10 PM.png

Here are our 6 proposed solutions

One Step Shop/Service

This is a store that offers a service for finding, researching, and registering for all kinds of preparation and file works. Just simply tell the staff about your needs, he/she will help you do everything!

Participants' Feedback:

Familiar with agency service
Wrong availability frustrates me
Physical visit is important
Little cautious of price(A bit pricey)
Selling what they want to sell you

Community

This is an online platform for people who have had similar experiences and would love to offer help and advice. You can bring your questions and discuss with them both online and in person.

Participants' Feedback:

This problem is quite important
Helpful to encounter those resources
Doubt of the effectiveness of the online community
Anonymity : reluctant to believe the information

Find Roommate

This is a program that helps you find the roommate around you. Write down the profile and lifestyle and upload your information like SNS. You use the “Like” button like SNS. It helps you to reach out to idle roommates.

Participants' Feedback:

Interesting and similar way
Effective way against financial
Need time to socialize
Possible Scam: We don't get to know person that well.

One Stop Platform: Guidance on Housing Search

This is a platform that guides your journey of housing search. It guides you from gathering roommates, housing search, to actual move in.

Participants' Feedback:

Most of them said they might use the service
Solves Problem very well
What could it differentiate from the agencies
How to address the problem and context more relevant to users?
Possible Wrong Availability
Need to work with offline
Couldn't resonate to the problem and context suggested

University Affiliated Housing

This is a service provided by university. School partners up with leasing offices, provides off-campus housings, exclusive to students. Similar to on-campus housing, utilities are included to rent.

Participants' Feedback:

Guaranteed option: even for foreigners
Would definitely use if I had not much experience
Supply might be limited compared to the demand
Price might be higher than apartment

Find Financial Aid

This program finds appropriate and eligible financial aid. And one click apply to financial aid from searching result. This program makes it easy to apply.

Participants' Feedback:

The solution looks very good
Offer chance to look for wide range of availability
Not sure how well this will work
How could the solution make the financial aids meet specific need?
Depend on provided Provision
Scam issue
Limited Eligibility

We collected participants feedback along the way and compared their reactions on each solutions.

View Document

Revised Problem Statement

I am a full-time university student who has a limited budget and lives in first-time off-campus housing.

I am trying to minimize the amount of time spent on house searching.

But I had limited information and little knowledge about house searching.

Because my school doesn't give me too much information, guidance, and supports for house finding.

Frustrated and concerned if it is too time consuming.

Final Solution

Our final solution was university-affiliated housing, which provides off-campus housing to students with the on-campus pricing policy which includes utility bills, and flexible payment options. (Including business viability: as the institute can ensure a stable number of student customers to the leasing offices.)

Reflection

We made lots of interviews in this project, and I noticed how important it was to remain silent when interviewees were thinking about their answers. Any suggestions or words from the interviewers could affect their original ideas or mindset.

One unidealized thing is that we didn't get to have any face-to-face interviewing experiences due to the pandemic reasons. I believed that the online interviewing experience is quite different from an in-person one, and I still need to learn how to handle in-person interviews in a better way in the future.

Previous Project

Final Solution

User Testing

Concept

Reflection

Challenge

'Many students nowadays are still struggling with their living expenses. Housing rent being a big part of the spending are always creating pressure and stress for students.' What can we do to help these students?

Process

Background & Secondary Research To fully understand the subject we will be dealing with, we kicked off the project by starting a background research on housing-related issues that students frequently encounter.

Our first goal was to prepare for a user interview that would help us form ideas for the final solution. We created a document to gather materials that might help us, and we started to draft ideas and questions for the upcoming interview.

After the research, we identified our target audiences. And we created a recruitment criteria for our interviewees.

● Students who have experience of living off-campus housing. ● Have pressure to pay rent

Survey Our team then started a survey to better understand high rent's impact on students.

26 participants via Google Form

Here is the questions and responses of the survey:

We filtered the participants down from 26 people to 20 people based on our recruitment criteria. And we identified these rest 20 people to be our target audiences.

Summary

Most of the participants are renting.

Most of the participants can pay for their housing and 38% of the participants can pay for living just fine.

Most of the participants are current students.

Most of the participants choose their current housing due to budget reasons. Half of the participants also indicated their housing preference is better commuting location.

Over half of the participants spent over 30% of their living cost on housing, and over one fourth of participants are spending over 50%.

Most of the participants lower their spending by reducing their utility bill and sharing their housing with roommates.

Most of the participants chose the numbers over 5 to indicate their pressure level.

Interview We need more specific details of the subject. So, we invited 4 target audiences from the survey to join our interview.

4 participants via ZOOM Meeting

We tried to keep interviewees engaged throughout the interview, so we came up with an interview method, interviewing with games.

Here are the games and interviewees' responses

Analysis of the Responses

Students who suffer from rent want to leverage for long-term stability in life.

​

Students who don't work or depend on their parents for housing expenses have less knowledge and limited access to finding housing aid sites.

​

Despite the financial restriction, students and recent grads want to live nearby which has public transportation or is within walking distance.

​

People who share a room with close friends are more likely to treat themselves with a lower standard of living.

​

Through the interview, we figured a key problem: 'Students have little willingness and knowledge and limited access to find housing aid or support.'

Persona

We then created a persona to represent the target audiences.

User Journey Map

After that, we created a user journey map to address the possible problems and opportunities throughout a student's moving experience.

We also created a problem statement that narrowed down the subject.

Problem Statement

I am an university student who has a limited budget(works part time, gets limited financial support from parent) and lives in first-time off campus housing.

User Testing Near the end, our team proposed 6 solutions and had interviews with 5 target audiences. We were going to hear from them and decided one solution as the final solution for the subject.

5 participants via ZOOM Meeting

Here are our questions to participants

Here are our 6 proposed solutions

One Step Shop/Service

This is a store that offers a service for finding, researching, and registering for all kinds of preparation and file works. Just simply tell the staff about your needs, he/she will help you do everything!

Participants' Feedback:

Familiar with agency service

Wrong availability frustrates me

Physical visit is important

Little cautious of price(A bit pricey)

Selling what they want to sell you

Community

This is an online platform for people who have had similar experiences and would love to offer help and advice. You can bring your questions and discuss with them both online and in person.

Participants' Feedback:

This problem is quite important

Helpful to encounter those resources

Doubt of the effectiveness of the online community

Anonymity : reluctant to believe the information

Find Roommate

This is a program that helps you find the roommate around you. Write down the profile and lifestyle and upload your information like SNS. You use the “Like” button like SNS. It helps you to reach out to idle roommates.

Participants' Feedback:

Interesting and similar way

Effective way against financial

Need time to socialize

Possible Scam: We don't get to know person that well.

One Stop Platform: Guidance on Housing Search

This is a platform that guides your journey of housing search. It guides you from gathering roommates, housing search, to actual move in.

Participants' Feedback:

Most of them said they might use the service

Solves Problem very well

What could it differentiate from the agencies

How to address the problem and context more relevant to users?

Possible Wrong Availability

Need to work with offline

Couldn't resonate to the problem and context suggested

This is a service provided by university. School partners up with leasing offices, provides off-campus housings, exclusive to students. Similar to on-campus housing, utilities are included to rent.

Participants' Feedback:

Guaranteed option: even for foreigners

Would definitely use if I had not much experience

'Many students nowadays are still struggling with their living expenses. Housing rent being a big part of the spending are always creating pressure and stress for students.'

What can we do to help these students?

Background & Secondary Research

To fully understand the subject we will be dealing with, we kicked off the project by starting a background research on housing-related issues that students frequently encounter.

● Students who have experience of living off-campus housing.
● Have pressure to pay rent

Survey

Our team then started a survey to better understand high rent's impact on students.

26

participants
via Google Form

Interview

We need more specific details of the subject. So, we invited 4 target audiences from the survey to join our interview.

4

participants
via ZOOM Meeting

Through the interview, we figured a key problem:

'Students have little willingness and knowledge and limited access to find housing aid or support.'

User Testing

Near the end, our team proposed 6 solutions and had interviews with 5 target audiences. We were going to hear from them and decided one solution as the final solution for the subject.

5

participants
via ZOOM Meeting