"We believe in empowering students with practical tools and habits that enable them to thrive in shared living environments, helping them to succeed in any collaborative space or community."
Simple guide to go through the app features and get started!
By linking to the student's school information, Dormbo could easily link their profile in a few seconds. We offer a quick start guide to introduce the app’s main features, helping students get comfortable using it right away.
Dormbo includes guidance on setting dorm rules step-by-step, ensuring each roommate can voice their needs,
By clicking Dormitory rules, students and their roommates could select the frequency and period of cleaning tasks, and learn how to compromise and collaborate.
On the to-do page, students can view the tasks assigned to them based on previously established dorm rules. Once a student completes a task, it requires confirmation from their roommates. After the confirmation is provided, the task list will reset. This approach allows students to see at a glance what tasks they are expected to do.
Students can view help requests from their roommates or the entire dormitory, each listing points awarded upon completion. They can accept tasks selectively or post their own requests, fostering mutual understanding and stronger roommate relationships through collaboration.
Students receive notifications prompting them to confirm completed tasks. By navigating to the "Confirm Your Roommate" page, they can verify that their roommates have finished their assigned duties. This system promotes mutual accountability and transparency, ensuring both parties recognize and appreciate each other's contributions.
In the completed page, students can view tasks that have been verified by their roommates. Once confirmed, they can claim all the points earned from these tasks, motivating for students to complete their own tasks or assist others.
Students can view both their dorm’s ranking within the entire residence hall and their individual ranking. Below this, where they can utilize these points for rewards, motivating them to stay active and engaged with dorm tasks and activities.
Students can view their personal information, such as checking linked school accounts and reviewing their point redemption history. This allows them to easily keep track of their engagement and rewards.
Living with a “ bad ” roommate, you might have...
Interestingly, on-campus residents make up less than half of the first-year student population.
Throughout our survey with 55 responses and 12 participants for interviews to gather deeper insights into students' needs and concerns. Our goal was twofold: to ensure that students' personal privacy in their living situations would be respected and to identify actionable opportunities to improve their experiences. These methods allowed us to better understand the nuances of their challenges and uncover potential solutions that align with their priorities and preferences.
We conducted one-on-one interviews with 10 students living in on-campus housing and 2 Resident Assistants (RAs). The goal was to summarize students’ housing experiences and pain points while also understanding how RAs manage conflicts daily. Additionally, we explored the limitations and challenges RAs face in their roles, providing us with a comprehensive view of the dynamics within campus housing.
Building on insights from our interviews and survey, we created a user journey map to visualize the students’ stories and highlight their pain points throughout the housing experience.
1. Roommate Conflicts: Users experience frustration when the preferences they select in their roommate matching questionnaire do not align with the characteristics of their assigned roommates.
2. Unsuccessful Open Discussions: Users feel disheartened after attempting open communication with their roommates, only to find that their efforts do not result in any meaningful changes or resolutions.
3. Seeking Help from RAs: Users report feeling awkward and more strained in their roommate relationships after seeking assistance from RA, as these interventions often fail to resolve conflicts effectively and instead exacerbate tension.
After conducting primary research, we identified key insights that guided us to select three "How Might We" (HMW) questions for further exploration. This approach became essential as it deepened our understanding, encouraged creative thinking, and provided a structured framework for developing solutions to help students navigate dormitory relationships effectively.
Problem Statement
No service or app is currently addressing how students collaborate on a daily basis, build cohesive relationships, or foster personal growth and character development within their living environments. That's why we want to collaborate with schools to foster a comprehensive dorm and campus experience.
Based on our previous research, we categorized and summarized the insights using Maslow's hierarchy of needs, ultimately identifying 8 user needs. Since lower-level needs are more essential, we selected three critical needs as user goals: fair treatment, a sense of belonging, and maintaining health.
Our task flow for the participants is to create an overall experience from the first day living in the dorm, set up rules, and task arrangements & implement them to receive awards, and achieve shared goals for a better dorm environment.
After the test, we used a post survey to let them rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1-5 to meet user goals, they rated relatively low on supporting- physical health and fostering a sense of belonging. What we did well was treating others fairly and having positive relationships.
Our second round of testing was a significant success, with each task achieving a success rate of over 95%. Users found that the clean and colorful UI really make them want to use it, the UX writing is clear and intuitive, and the rewards give them motivation to finish cleaning task and help with others.
Let’s take a look at how our service works.
Our service not only aims to increase the number of dorm residents but also encourages students to continue living in dorms into their second year.
I developed a stronger understanding of logical thinking. This project trained me to identify issues systematically and craft solutions based on rigorous analysis. The course, Human Cognitive Factor, allowed me to explore human-centered design principles, especially how people perceive and interact with visual elements, and how to create designs that align better with human habits and cognitive processes. Additionally, I learned to delve deeper into root causes rather than addressing surface-level problems, ensuring more effective and sustainable solutions!
