Hoosier Housing

Our Project

Our goal with the Hoosier Housing project was to identify and solve, utilizing HCI concepts, the foremost problems in the IU off campus housing market. We gathered secondary data to establish a baseline as well as proof of existence of the issue. We then collected primary data by interviewing 12 IU undergraduates who had or were in the process of finding off campus housing. We then derived the main ideas from our interview responses by organizing them into an Affinity map via a Miro board. The main points which we identified are listed under main points.

We then began ideating to figure out how best to solve each problem. Our final ideas were an application to make transportation to campus from off campus housing cheaper and easier (as we could not lower the cost of housing close to campus) and two different applications which both included features designed to make the housing search process easier. Those features included interactive maps, centralized listing details, filters, roommate profile pages, message boards, and options to leave reviews.

Our final design idea was a combination of the two ideated applications which were designed to ease the search process. The features we chose to retain were the interactive map, detailed housing listings, filter settings, roommate profiles, and the message function. We also added a favorites page to both make it easier to identify desired housing and make it easier to identify roommates who want to live in similar areas. The idea behind the housing search and filter functions is to centralize the search process in order to reduce stress. Being able to find a roommate and an apartment on the same application decreases the complexity associated with the process.

Big Points

• Housing close to campus is hard to afford
  
• There is a wide range in quality of housing
  
• Roommates decrease stress level and costs but can be hard to find