Rent Smart
A mobile app helping university students find off-campus housing in Toronto
I designed a mobile app with succinct apartment viewing checklists and clear, bite-size educational resources for student renters in Toronto.
01
At a Glance
Duration: Sept - Dec 2024
Context: Class project for a Master's level Fundamentals of UX course
Team: Yixin Guo, Olivia Ou, Amanda Wang, Caitlin Wong
​Tools: Figma, Miro, Canva, Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Project)
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My Key Responsibilities:
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Conducted user interviews and usability testing
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Completed background research and competitive analyses
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Ideated main app features
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Presented design solutions at Playback meetings
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Led project management and tracked progress​
​Problem Statement: Help post-secondary students in Toronto feel safer and more confident when finding off-campus housing
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02
Project Stages
Toronto is experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis. More and more people face housing precarity or even homelessness. Low- and middle-income post-secondary students are often disproportionately affected by city-wide housing challenges. How can we best support these students in finding safe, budget-friendly off-campus rentals?
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We use the following design stages to understand and address this issue.
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Background Research
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Problem Definition
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Ideation
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Prioritization
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Wireframe Creation
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Usability Testing
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Pivoting
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UI Design​
I illustrate these stages in the project timeline in a Gantt chart below.
03
Background Research
Findings
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Toronto is experiencing a housing crisis.
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Low availability: There are limited rental units available on the market.
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Low affordability: Rental units are too expensive for students.
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Predatory or unlawful landlord practices: Landlords often demand upfront deposit payments exceeding legal amounts.
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Additional burdens on students with marginalized identities
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Methodology
We conducted both primary and secondary background research.
First, we completed secondary research on Toronto's housing market, existing tools, and key stakeholders. I used an environmental scan to contextualize Toronto's housing crisis and how it disproportionately affects non-local, post-secondary students. Furthermore, I identified both individual and institutional stakeholders. I also outlined existing tools and resources, from university resources to community legal services, building a foundation for our competitor analysis.
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For the primary research, I drafted the interview guide and conducted two semi-structured user interviews. I coded the results, synthesized the themes, and created the structure of the affinity diagram (attached below).
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04
Problem Definition
From our research insights, I proposed the problem statement: we want to help post-secondary students in Toronto feel safer and more confident when finding off-campus housing. To narrow down the scope, the team decided to use non-local students as our primary persona because they tend to face more housing challenges than those from the GTA. ​
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05
Ideation
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Individual Crazy 8's
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Team Round Robin
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Prioritization
We mapped product ideas based on user value and feasibility and identified “checklists” as an easy win. We plan to design apartment checklists with embedded explanations to help non-local students prepare for rental viewings.
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Prior to usability testing, we thought combining a renters’ knowledge quiz with an information map would benefit users while showcasing our design skills.
08
Usability Testing
Method: ​
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Five-second test
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Think-aloud
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Probing questions
Findings​:
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Almost all users (6 out of 7) correctly identified the app’s purpose within 5 seconds.
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Most users (5 out of 7) were unsure about the purpose of the quiz (testing knowledge or matching rentals?) and expected to see listings.
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Over half of the users (4 out of 7) found the label “Organizations” ambiguous.
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Some users (2 out of 7) recommended adding educational resources (e.g., cheat sheets).
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Pivoting
We decided to pivot to the checklist function and eliminate the quiz.
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UI Design
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Reflection
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An arm's length from users: maintain distance between designers and users to avoid personal biases especially when designers and primary user groups share the same identities
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Functions first: choose the idea that has the highest user value and reasonable feasability regardless of its simplicity and build the UI design from there