Apartment Hunting — UX Study
A Qualitative and Quantitative UX Research
This is a part of my class Assignment at UW Madison.
Role: UX researcher
Members: Chris, Alex, Shelcia
Tools: FigJam, Figma, Google Docs, Qualtrics and Tableau
Project timeline:
Overall: 10 weeks
- Discussing the problem — 1 week
- User Interviews — 1 week
- Contextual Inquiry — 1 week
- Survey — 1 week
- Designing UX Experiment — 1 week
- Affinity Mapping — 1 week
- Drafting Persona — 1 week
- Journey Mapping — 1 week
- HEART Framework — 1 week
- Documentation — 1 week
Objective
The objective of the research journey and subsequent UX design initiative is to enhance the apartment-hunting experience for students at Madison by developing a significantly improved, user-friendly platform. The goal is to streamline the housing search process, simplifying it and providing users with easy access to accurate information. The overarching vision is to ensure a seamless user experience, enabling users to effortlessly comprehend and navigate through all available housing information.
Key Components of the Objective:
- User-Centric Design: Prioritize user needs, motivations, and grievances in the current apartment-search endeavors. The design should address common pain points and offer solutions that enhance the overall user experience.
- Platform Enhancement: Develop a user-friendly platform that significantly improves the apartment-hunting experience. This includes streamlining the search process, simplifying navigation, and ensuring easy access to accurate and relevant housing information.
- Competitive Analysis: Utilize insights from competitive analysis of existing platforms such as Apartments.com, Google, Zillow, and Apartment Finder. Identify unique features and strengths to optimize the new housing search platform and exceed user expectations.
- Metrics and Evaluation: Utilize the HEART framework for measurement, focusing on metrics related to Happiness and Task Success. The goal is to reduce frustration in finding an apartment, decrease the time spent on the housing search, and enhance overall user satisfaction and engagement.
- Continuous Improvement: Establish a foundation for continuous improvement by analyzing survey results, affinity maps, and journey maps. Iterate on the design based on user feedback and evolving user needs.
By achieving these objectives, the project aims to create a housing search platform that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of students at Madison, providing them with a seamless, enjoyable, and efficient experience throughout their apartment-hunting journey.
Research Journey
We embarked on our research journey by gaining a deep understanding of the scope of the problem at hand. In addressing the issue, we employed various methods to gather information from users, including user interviews, contextual inquiries with ‘think out loud’ sessions and surveys. With the data in hand, we began comprehending the goals of the experiment, and we designed the UX experiment. Analyzing the collected data, we proceeded to extract valuable insights and organized them through affinity mapping. Once we grasped the major themes underlying the problem’s scope, we utilized persona and journey mapping to delve further into the nuances of user pain points, touch points, unique goals, frustrations, and areas of unique opportunities for improvement. Finally, we immersed ourselves in the HEART framework to comprehend the metrics and goals of users throughout their journey, using it as a tool for measurement.
Problem statement
With a growing influx of students from diverse backgrounds enrolling at Madison each semester, securing appropriate accommodations has emerged as a crucial issue. As a team, our focus centered on comprehending the requirements, motivations, and grievances of students in their current apartment-search endeavors. Our goal was to identify opportunities for enhancing and innovating the housing search process.
Goal
The vision is to enhance the apartment-hunting experience by developing a significantly improved, user-friendly platform. The aim is to streamline the search process, dedicating efforts to simplifying it and offering users easy access to accurate information.
The goal is to ensure a seamless user experience, enabling users to effortlessly comprehend and navigate through all available housing information.
Target Market and Competitive Analysis
In our analysis, we have identified unique features and strengths of existing platforms such as Apartments.com, Google, Zillow, and Apartment Finder. Understanding these distinctions is crucial for optimizing our new housing search platform to meet and exceed user expectations.
User Research Plan and Methodologies
Research Questions
How can we improve the housing hunting experience?
What are common pain points when searching for an apartment?
To answer these questions, we employed the following methodologies:
- User Interviews: We interviewed 9 people to understand their experiences with house hunting
- Contextual Inquiry: We observed and gathered insights from participants as they navigated apartment search platforms and verbalized their thoughts and actions. This provided us the valuable insight into their search process.
- Surveys: We will distribute surveys to a wider audience to gather quantitative data about apartment search preferences and pain points.
User Interviews
Sample Size: 9 participants
Goal of the Interview
The goal of the interview is to gather insights about users’ experiences, attitudes, and interactions with apartment searching platforms. We aim to understand their motivations, pain points, and suggestions for improving the user experience. By exploring their apartment search journey, we can identify opportunities to enhance the existing product or service.
Method of Interviewing
We conducted individual in-person or virtual interviews with participants, depending on their availability and preferences. The interviews followed a semi-structured approach, combining open-ended questions with follow-up probes to elicit detailed responses and personal anecdotes.
We then synthesized the thoughts and methods into 20 questions.
Model Questionnaire: https://shelcia.notion.site/Model-Questionnaire-ee19a62aee6e42a1aa5015ebfb0a5738?pvs=4
Contextual Inquiry
Sample Size: 6 participants
Observation Focus
We delved into the needs, motivations, and dissatisfactions of students concerning their current housing-finding experiences in a new location. Our goal was to understand how they would approach this process from scratch in a new location and pinpoint potential areas for improvement.
Sub Categories
- How has their overall experience been in finding housing?
- Do they have any specific criteria when searching for a new place?
- Are they satisfied with their current living environment?
- How is their interaction with the landlord or property manager?
- Any other insights?
Observation Methods
We employed ethnographic interviewing and ‘think out loud’ techniques during the interviews. Additionally, at times, we posed questions based on our assumptions derived from user actions to clarify our understanding. Our interviews were conducted partly in person and partly in a virtual setting.
Data Collection
Using phones: We used phones as cameras to capture photos or videos of the user’s experience while going through the housing process.
Desktop Usage: When user uses desktop computer, we took screenshots and recorded the screen as necessary to capture their digital interactions and activities.
Handwritten Notes: We took handwritten notes to document details of the user’s experience. This includes their comments, reactions, and any other important observations.
Takeaways
- Benefits: Offers insights into users’ thought processes during the search.
- Limitations: No non-verbal behavior observations or real-time actions were considered.
Survey
Sample Size: 32 participants
Recruitment Plan
Our survey recruitment plan involved posting it in various club group chats, specifically targeting our key demographic — college students in Madison. Leveraging these group chats was expected to provide us with access to a large pool of potential participants.
Key Topics to be covered
- Apartment Searching Process end to end
- Living experience currently
Survey Link: https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0AO5Bq1KdK0kLYO
Survey Results: UXSurveyReport.csv
Takeaways
- Benefits: With the survey, we were able to collect data from a larger group compared to interviews.
- Limitations: Non-response biases, which may lead to skewed results (which i have detailed in my other article — https://medium.com/@shelcia/surveys-non-response-bias-39d4ac69a13e ).
Affinity Map
With the collected data, we collaboratively drafted affinity maps in FigJam.
Based on the affinity maps, We identified 11 themes and corresponding user needs. The affinity map helped us consolidate information and develop detailed user personas.
Personas
Utilizing insights from the affinity map, we crafted personas representing key demographics, goals, needs, challenges, and behaviors observed during the study. These personas offered a focused and humanized perspective, guiding the development of solutions to address the diverse needs of our user groups. The personas we developed include:
- Domestic Student Apartment Seeker: Cornelius values the ability to contact landlords, view apartment locations on a map, and find affordable housing close to his work.
- International Student Apartment Seeker: Priya faces informational challenges as an international student searching for an apartment in Madison.
Reflections
We found the process of implementing our data into a table to be smooth. The categories we selected for analyzing goals, challenges, needs, and behaviors aligned well for creating a persona. The most challenging aspect was the narrative format of the persona, as we had to condense all the information into a logical structure. When creating personas for international students, which constitute a significant portion of our participants, it took some time to merge the frustrated, needs, and behaviors into a concise and meaningful result. Eventually, we achieved clarity and cohesion in the persona development process.
Journey Mapping
Afterwards, we mapped out the user journey based on the insights gathered from our research. This process aided us in comprehending the user’s experience, allowing us to pinpoint pain points and identify opportunities for improvement.
Creating Journey Map
Defining Stages
Identified key stages in the apartment-searching process, ranging from the initial awareness of the need for housing to the final decision and move-in.
Persona Alignment
Based on the users we interviewed and observed, our persona pertains to younger adults at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Understanding Pain Points and Identifying Opportunities
Highlighting Pain points
Identify pain points or challenges that users encountered at each stage. These obstacles included confusing rental processes, limited housing options, or unclear communication.
Amplifying Opportunities
For each stage, we carefully analyzed touchpoints, identified pain points, and assessed the frustrations that hindered users’ goals. We then synthesized this information to understand if there are any opportunity areas for us to explore.
Reflections
- Enhanced User Clarity: Cornelius’s persona provides essential demographic details, aiding in a better understanding of the user’s context, needs, and behaviors.
- Goal Identification: The persona clearly outlines Cornelius’s goals, focusing on finding an affordable apartment near his new job, providing a clear direction for the journey map.
- Stage-Focused Journey: The user journey highlights each stage, emphasizing sub-goals, thoughts, emotions, and actions. Identifying pain points as opportunities streamlines discussions and maintains a concentrated focus on addressing specific issues at each stage.
- Persona Depth: While basic demographic information is included, deeper insights into Cornelius’s motivations and preferences would enhance the understanding of his apartment hunting journey.
- Incomplete Narrative: Highlighting common emotions at each stage in the journey map may overlook certain emotions, potentially leaving gaps in the complete narrative of the user’s journey.
- Diverse Paths: The user journey map amalgamates experiences, presenting cohesive patterns. However, individual deviations may not be prominently emphasized, allowing for potential variations in paths.
HEART framework
To measure our success, we have set metrics based on the HEART framework:
- Happiness: Reduce frustration in finding an apartment.
- Task success: Reduce the time spent on finding housing and signing a lease.
Reflection
The chosen metrics under the “Happiness” category align well with the goal of reducing frustration in finding an apartment. One goal that stands out is the focus on reducing frustration and making the house searching process less overwhelming. By tracking metrics such as transfer rate from searching to be a tenant, success rate to reach the official website, button clicks rate, and bounce rates, we can gain more insights into how enjoyable the journey was for users.
Additionally, I think the metrics related to user satisfaction and engagement are crucial for assessing the overall success of the website. These metrics will help us gauge the level of user engagement and identify opportunities to enhance the user experience.
Overall, the goals, metrics, and signals are selected to provide us with a comprehensive approach to evaluating the success of our project as they cover various aspects of user experience, satisfaction, engagement, and efficiency. I believe that by leveraging this framework, we could immensely improve the various facets of the user experience on the website.
Next Steps
Prototyping: Drawing from the opportunity areas we identified, we can prototype various ideas for websites aimed at enhancing the apartment-finding experience.
A/B Testing: We will conduct an experiment to test various aspects of apartment-hunting websites. This process will help validate our research findings and determine which features should be prioritized for our prototypes.
Experiment Mockup
Figma — For drawing two different prototypes
Maze — For the experiment
- Group A: https://t.maze.co/198544230
- Group B: https://t.maze.co/198564412
Conclusion
Our research journey involved conducting insightful interviews and contextual inquiries with students actively engaged in the search for apartments in Madison, WI. To distill the wealth of information gathered, we employed affinity diagramming, crafted personas, and meticulously mapped the intricate nuances of the apartment hunting experience in a comprehensive journey map.
Key findings include:
- Inaccuracies in Apartment Listings: A significant challenge surfaced as students navigated through inaccuracies in apartment listings. This discrepancy added a layer of complexity and uncertainty to their search process.
- Overwhelming Nature of Apartment Hunting: The apartment hunting journey emerged as a formidable task, characterized by the overwhelming array of locations and amenities that students had to meticulously consider. The sheer volume of choices posed a substantial challenge.
- Multiple Website Consultation: Many students adopted a multi-platform approach, consulting various websites to compile information on location, reviews, and the legitimacy of prospective apartments. This highlighted the fragmented nature of available resources.
- Communication Hurdles with Landlords or Property Managers: Several students encountered difficulties in maintaining timely and effective communication with landlords or property managers. This aspect of the process posed a notable hurdle in their overall apartment hunting experience.
In essence, our findings underscore the intricate challenges that students face in the apartment hunting landscape. By uncovering these key insights, we lay the groundwork for informed solutions aimed at enhancing the overall experience and addressing the specific pain points identified in the journey of finding suitable accommodations.
