Rent Smart | Caitlin Wong

The Problem

Many post-secondary students in Toronto are renters and have difficulty navigating the housing market due to renting inexperience, financial burdens/lack of income, and information overload.

So we asked...

How might we help post-secondary students feel safer and more confident when finding off-campus renting options in Toronto?

Solution

An interactive knowledge hub that organizes the rental process and related resources into checklists.

Research Methods

Background research

To help us get a better understanding of our problem space and plan user interviews.

Competitive audit

To identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities of existing renting related resources.

5 resources used to look for housing
5 resources used to learn about or get help with housing-related topics

User interviews

To understand our target users' needs, challenges, and existing knowledge when renting housing in Toronto.

8 interviews with post-secondary students who currently rent in Toronto
~30 min, conducted in person and Zoom

Insights

Renting requires local knowledge

8/8 students shared a wide array of uncertainties surrounding rental processes and rules whether it was during their searches or while living in rented housing.

"I don't know what rent prices look like in a town, versus in a city"

Renting takes an emotional toll

6/8 students reported feeling stressed, desperation, and exhaustion.

"I was desperate...I need a place"

Concerns about trust

5/8 students mentioned a need for trust, which applied to people, such as landlords or realtors, and information.

"When looking online, ...how do I actually know that this is trustworthy?"

Bad landlords

5/8 students shared stories about challenged they faced regarding their landlords from pests, maintenance, to rent increases. Experiencing issues with their landlords occurred irregardless of whether renters knew their tenant rights or not.

"The landlord said it's our problem to fix... I looked into [the laws] and it says...that landlords are in charge of these types of pest control incidents"

Refining Our Problem Scope

Help post-secondary students who are first-time renters learn and apply knowledge of tenant rights and housing regulations, so they feel safe and confident when finding and living in off-campus housing in Toronto

Why was this necessary?

1 - Our problem statement already assumed a solution

We wanted to explore a broad variety of ideas before defining a solution, which would be inhibited through assuming students need to learn tenant rights and housing regulations to feel safe and confident.

2 - Finding housing is very different than living in it

The challenges students faced while finding vs. living in rented housing differed significantly, so we would need to narrow our focus or risk a watered down solution. We decided to focus on the 'finding' stage since impacts could trickle down into the 'living in' stage.

Competitors

Evaluating the various ways students use to find off-campus housing

What is offered

Gaps & opportunities

Post-Secondary Institutions

Various resources such as informational videos, workshops, and an off-campus housing websites

Resources are overwhelming and difficult to navigate

WeChat

Offer or seek rentals, roommates, and agents in dedicated group chats

Measures for preventing scams and misinformation

Facebook

Offer or seek rentals on marketplace or dedicated groups

Measures for preventing scams and misinformation

Real Estate Agents

Professional advice and guidance for listings curated to renter's needs

Building trust and clarity about how to find a realtor, what realtors do, and their fees

Word of Mouth

Information from personal networks

Not all students have local contacts and information shared through word of mouth can be unreliable

Target Users

Two personas to represent inexperienced student renters in Toronto.

Ben

Not a Toronto Local

Priorities

Maggie

International Student

Priorities

Ideation & Prioritizing Ideas

We brainstormed ways to help students while finding housing through activities like Crazy Eights and Round Robin, focusing on quantity over quality. To decide on which ideas to prioritize, we evaluated them based on estimated user value and feasibility. We decided to explore the Renting Insight Map and Renting Knowledge Quiz (purple squares) because they would contribute novelty to the existing resource market and the interactive nature could attract engagement among students.

Prioritization matrix

Iteration

We started the design by generating the task flows and several low-fidelity wireframes for the Insight Map and Knowledge Quiz.

Lo-fi iterations in a task flow

Next, we prepared a mid-fidelity prototype. We tested this prototype with 7 of our peers and 2 industry advisors.

Screens from prototype (left to right): Homepage, Knowledge Quiz (correct answer selected), Insight Map (neighbourhood information summary), Insight Map (neighbourhood detailed information)

The main insights from peer usability testing and advisor playbacks were:

Participants kept gravitating towards the "Resources" section that was included as a placeholder on the home page
The insight map lacked context and labelling, so it was confusing
Some participants found the quiz intimidating
The purpose of the insight map and knowledge quiz did not meet user expectations

So, now what?

The value of both the knowledge quiz and rental insight map was lower than we expected. So, we took a step back to re-evaluate the direction of our project.

I led the team in generating a mind map to help us visualize the problem space from our modified HMW (which focuses on finding housing and excludes living in rented housing). Generating this map helped us realized that checklists could deliver more value than the map or quiz by addressing more aspects of the problem.
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Ultimately, we decided to pivot to checklists (dark grey square on the prioritization matrix).

Mind map: visualizing the problem space after refining the objective

Highlights

Let's take a look at the checklist experience...

Next Steps

Next, I'll be building out a live version of the design! It likely won't be in an app format, but will still be mobile friendly so that it's easy to use on the go. I'd also look to build on the current design with the following:

Other Checklists

Design additional checklists that support the searching process such as: Finding a Realtor, Finding a Roommate, Documents List, Lease Signing.

Checklist Outputs

Examine providing a “next steps” summary based on the list items renters did or didn’t check off.

After Moving In

Looking a little further, the scope of the checklists would expand to encompass the experience of living in rented housing.

Reflection

One of my biggest takeaways from this project was that sometimes, less is more.

What do I mean by this? During idea prioritization, I was a proponent against checklists because they were 'too simple'. However, after the disappointing usability testing results and feedback from one of our industry advisors (shoutout to Shannah), we decided to scrap our prototype and design the checklists.

In the end, the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive with multiple people telling me they would use our app! This showed me that something seemingly simple can prove to be highly effective!