Design(ing) for Service: Housing Transitions
Process documentation for our final project in molly w steenson’s Design for Service class. Group: Angela Ng, Gabriel Mitchell, Allison Huang. Previously Foster Care (02.18–03.22)
02.18–03.22 Foster Care
We spent about a month trying to see where a service could intervene in the foster care system. After doing a lot of secondary research and reaching out to lots of people with knowledge and experience in the foster care world, we found that it was just too hard to stay in contact with potential users of our service for research and prototyping; foster parents and caseworkers are incredibly busy, and there are privacy concerns around the entire system in general. We learned a lot in doing that research and are using some of the mindsets we heard about to inform our design of a service targeted towards housing transitions. Documentation of the work we did leading up to this pivot can be found here.
03.23 Pivot to Transitions
After meeting with Molly, we’ve decided to pivot away from foster care to focus more on transitions. This seems to be a space where we can leverage our knowledge from our foster care research, such as the importance of providing both material and social support to someone in a stage of transitioning. We also decided to focus on groups of people that we’d have easy access to for research and prototyping. We did a lot of brainstorming and came up with two main proposal ideas.
Our first idea is to create a service that connects people who are looking for housing in another city to each other. Especially for students returning from study abroad programs, students looking for summer internship housing, new grad students, and recent graduates, current online services often aren’t very reliable. Many people would rather see the place and meet the landlord in person. Another difficulty is in policies around signing leases for people who aren’t able to be there in person; perhaps our service could provide a proxy or a method for signing from a distance.
People: students moving off-campus/recent grads/Landlords
Problem: don’t know how to navigate housing, especially from afar
Provocation: People can look for housing for each other: someone moving PGH -> Boston might be able to look for housing for someone moving Boston -> PGH and vice versa. also might be able to swap places/things/advice/friends??
Details: How do you find housing for internship if not given? Can you find housing without going there? or grad school, coming back from a study abroad program? How far in advance do you have to book housing? Big problem for pittsburgh and students if go abroad there won’t be any places close to campus
Another idea we had was to explore a skill/resource-sharing service for close or collocated communities. In dorm life, there are opportunities to knock on your hallmate’s door and ask for help with your physics homework or borrow their water boiler for a cup of tea. As students move off campus or graduate, they may not know their neighbors and don’t have immediate connections to skills or resources that they may have become accustomed to in their dorms.
People: students moving off-campus/recent grads
Problem: lacking skills/resources/connection to community
Provocation: exchange someone else’s knowledge of how to cook a meal for your knowledge of how to quickly assemble IKEA furniture via a service that connects people in your specific community/neighborhood
Details: You always ask people on craigslist or for sale @ cmu to fix this, or teach me how to do that for a fee. Why not exchange what you know? Foster a better community and relationships that way, and make new friends nearby.
03.24 Transitions Brainstorm
In class today, we got the opportunity to list out a bunch of the problems that many students have to deal with as they transition from on-campus dorm life to off-campus housing. One main problem space we found is that many students don’t even know what they should be worrying about before they commit to off-campus living, let alone how to take care of those things (for example: landlord relationships, cleaning and maintaining common spaces, and safety issues). We came up with multiple provocations tackling different parts of the problem space. One is a “temporary essentials package” that could be rented and split between all the housemates, including furniture, kitchen supplies, bathroom supplies, etc. This might eliminate tensions about who bought what/who brought what, and would also be of value to people who are graduating and don’t know what to do with their things. Another could be a service that steps into roommate relationships when things go wrong, acting as an RA/mediator in those situations. A chore splitter/tracker could help keep track of what everyone has done and keep roommates in line. Neighborhood communities could provide an intermediary step of community support for skill/resource sharing between the organized hierarchy of CA’s, RA’s, and residents in dorm life and the full independence of living off campus.
03.25 Research Synthesis & Provocations
We were able to meet up tonight to discuss our findings from talking to people with a pretty wide variety of off-campus housing experiences. After listing some of the common problems we heard about, we were able to gather them into a few buckets: accountability over shared spaces and things, roommate relationships, landlord relationships, subletting practices, and housing conditions being different than expected from online photos. Of course, these aren’t standalone buckets, and many of these bleed into each other.
Something interesting we heard from the people we spoke to was that the standard of living tends to be much higher in individual rooms rather than in the common areas. Because responsibility and accountability around shared spaces and things can be so difficult to manage, people aren’t as willing to invest in those areas. This raises some concerns for the “temporary essentials package” provocation we had come up with during the last class — but, as you’ve been emphasizing, the point of the provocations is to be wrong and to learn from them.
We brainstormed some ideas based on what we heard, keeping in mind as well some services that are in or nearby our problem space that we could build off of (Zach Hyman’s project, Cort furniture rental, and OurHome, to name a few). Framing them as “what if” questions, we wrote some provocations intended to get reactions that we can learn from.
- What if you had to sign a “roommate contract” along with the lease that you sign for the landlord as an introduction to things that you should be conscious of?
- What if there was a “common enemy”: a messenger to poke people to do chores?
- What if there was a way to monitor who goes where, who does what to be able to foster a sense of accountability?
- What if there were mirrors or some way you could see yourself doing things you shouldn’t be for accountability?
- What if there were a codified way to know whose week it was to take out of the trash/etc.? (different colored trash bags roll out every week)
- What if there were a way to know when everyone was home, or get everyone to meet up at the same time?
- What if there were a way to split the bill for *everything* in the apartment — not just rent and utilities?
- What if there were a value associated with not doing your chores: money? Do a favor? Sign up with your roommates and establish expectations
In terms of next steps, we’ve split up the provocations and are working on some lo-fi storyboards for each. Gabe is also working on scheduling a time for our whole team to go to an off-campus house to interview the housemates and learn from observation. We are also working on figuring out the value exchange that our service might facilitate.
03.29 Provocation Storyboards
For each of our provocations, we drew a storyboard that we’ll use to share our ideas with our research participants. In class, we talked about some more research findings, a few new ideas (we discussed one in particular about a moving/storage service that would allow college students to do all the heavy lifting themselves but not have to actually drive their possessions anywhere, inspired by PODS), possible value propositions for our service, and logistics for the on-site interview/observation we’re conducting tomorrow afternoon.
04.03 Research Synthesis & Service Blueprinting
After continuing to talk with people who have moved off campus recently about our questions and provocations, we came together to discuss our findings and find a place to focus our service. Two major points we heard a service could intervene or provide support were in roommate relationships and in the logistics of sharing things.
We’ve decided to gear our service less towards mediating roommate conflicts and more towards equipping students to transition well through the logistics of shared items/appliances and supplies. There are two main value exchanges to our service: a “rental” of sorts, where each roommate contributes to a “deposit” towards shared appliances like a microwave or vacuum cleaner (if all items are maintained well and kept clean, you can get the money back); and a subscription, through which roommates can receive disposable supplies like toilet paper and trash bags. Three main channels are used for touchpoints: physical, web/app, and phone.
As roommates sign up for the service, they are made aware of things they should be thinking about through the items available through the service; maybe they didn’t remember that they’d need dish soap or drain catches. They each individually create a “shopping cart” and the web/app shows where there are differences and where they all agree, enabling them to have a discussion about individual needs and desires when it comes to the tangible objects. They split the deposit based on who indicated they’d use what, and pay after each roommate has approved the transaction that will happen (again, affording for conversations and agreements).
When things break, the roommates can report the issue to the service, which will give steps for troubleshooting and deliver a replacement if necessary. They’ll also pick up the broken item and repair it behind the scenes if possible.
The supplies subscription calculates how much of each indicated item is needed based on the number of roommates. The amount can be adjusted as requested, and vacations or other breaks can be marked so that the service doesn’t deliver too much.
At move out, the service will send a checklist of items for return as well as boxes for those items to be packed up in. They will also send extra packing materials for items that didn’t belong to the service but that the roommates want to get rid of (for example, if someone brought a mini-fridge from home but doesn’t need it anymore). Behind the scenes, these items will be inspected and repaired as necessary, and the deposit return calculated accordingly. (This is also an opportunity for the service to gain non-monetary value from the roommates.)
We still have many questions to explore, including but not limited to: Can we provide things to share/form community, like board games or multi-player video games? How can we foster accountability — if one person consistently breaks things, what’s the reporting system like so that they lose more of their deposit? Should we limit available items to things that won’t break easily? Can we get landlords involved? What could a visual branding on each item look like? Is there a way we can connect this service to humanitarian organizations, perhaps buying supplies from ethical suppliers? What happens if you’re staying? What happens if you get new roommates with different preferences? What happens if someone suddenly needs to move out?
04.07 Value Flow Diagram
We’ve mapped the value flow for our service as it stands now with both the move-in and subscription components.
04.09 Move-In Service Prototype
We prototyped the move-in component of our service with three students. First, we asked them each to fill out a survey as if they were moving from furnished dorms to an unfurnished off-campus place in which they checked off their desired items to simulate individual shopping carts. After collecting each of their responses into a singular spreadsheet to simulate their shared shopping cart, we brought them together as if they were moving in together and had to come to an agreement on what they were getting and how much they were each paying.
Once they were able to see their shared shopping cart, the “potential housemates” were able to see what each of them had checked off and discuss why they wanted certain things (for example, one of them had checked off both a toaster and a toaster oven which didn’t seem necessary). There were a few instances where one person didn’t want to chip in because they didn’t feel like they would use something (for example, a shared set of dishes). We also heard a few interesting stories about their previous roommate situations. (In one case, both roommates had a blender to themselves because one made milkshakes and the other made salsa, and smells would stay behind!)
Because each of the “potential housemates” comes from a different culture, there were differences in cleaning and cooking styles. One roommate wanted a rice cooker and didn’t need a colander to strain pasta and vice versa. They asked if there was a way our service could encourage or mediate that conversation, or even if they would be well-suited to living with each other.
One issue that came up was the amount of money someone would want to invest based on how long they were staying in the city; for example, a Ph.D. student would be much more willing to get something nicer than someone who was here for just one or two years. The Ph.D. student might not want to chip in for a cheap shared service, but they might not be willing to share the nicer things.
Another problem would be if roommates are staying on: what happens to the rented items? Do they get returned and maintained? Do new roommates have to buy into their share of the rented items (if they even buy into the service at all)?
04.10 Narrowing Focus
In order to keep the scope of the project manageable and eliminate some of the major problems we came across in our prototype and discussions, we’ve decided to focus on the subscription box component of our service. This gives us the opportunity to do more high-fidelity prototypes and further workshops on the subscription box.
We hope to create paper prototypes and/or wireframes for the web/mobile components as well as a physical box with subscription items in it. We also plan to create some sort of brand identity that we can use on the screens and the box, since it’s a big part of how our service might be discovered.
04.17 Service Proposition & Prototypes
At our meeting today, we wrote our first service proposition draft and listed the touchpoints and flows we plan to prototype.
Our service is a bi-weekly subscription box that delivers common household supplies on a regular basis that may be shared amongst multiple tenants. Young adults who are transitioning to more independent living situations face problems like being unable to get supplies on a regular basis, store large amounts of supplies, and split costs between housemates. The service can spark conversations between housemates about personal preferences and lifestyle choices.
Touchpoints: website, box, emails
Flows: signing up for subscription box, completing individual shopping carts/approving the shared one, editing
04.19 Backing Up: Return to Furniture Rental
When Molly pointed out to us that the problems we were trying to avoid by turning towards a subscription box were actually where a well-considered service could intervene and have a larger impact, we decided to back up to our first blueprint and create a service based on our furniture rental idea. Our first step was to walk through the steps that were still relevant from our first blueprint and create a narrative. This narrative helped us determine which prototypes need to be at high-fidelity as well as what areas we needed to focus on for our next blueprint draft.
In class, we also went through the early stages of the move-in prototype above (filling out the “individual cart” form, setting up the spreadsheet, and starting a “shared cart” conversation) to get a better perspective on how we might personally use the service. From there, we used the responses we received on our form as well as our own observational research about the types of items university students are willing to share to create a master list of items our service would provide.
04.19 Blueprint, Service Proposition, Prototyping Steps
In creating our next blueprint draft, we tried to delve more deeply into the user experience flow by filling out rows for both the pragmatic steps and the “softer”, more narrative-like experience (pulled from the storyboard above).
This method helped us to dive more deeply into our service’s “highlight moments” and make key decisions about how major problems would be handled.
One issue we dealt with was how pricing would work. We decided that the house price would be split evenly across all housemates. To that end, our service will not provide personal, non-shared items (like a bedroom set); those decisions do not necessarily spark the conversations and lay the foundations for housemate relationships that we’d like to see occur. We also decided to frame this less as a deposit model or rental service since there is no subscription box to supplement the service’s income. Our new pricing model is more like a purchase of the items with the opportunity to return all the items in good working condition at the end of the lease for half their money back. Giving our customers the benefit of the doubt means that we can’t assume that we’ll profit off of their damages, but this new model allows the service to profit (perhaps also by investing the deposits) while the customers see value in being able to get some money back. It also provides some accountability for the shared items, since everyone wants to get as much money back as possible.
Another issue that came up was how the shared shopping cart would be visualized and what the interactions between the housemates and the service/between the housemates themselves could be like based on what we showed them. By not giving them specific details about how much each specific item costs or even what each one looks like, we mitigate comparisons and questions about the niceness of each item. Rather, we hope that the housemates will be able to sit down and work through the shared shopping cart creation process together. It is designed so that only the house account owner can edit the cart; each housemate will then have to approve the cart through an emailed touchpoint to prevent the house account owner from taking advantage of the others. The easiest way we see to get past this approval process is for housemates to sit down together and have a face-to-face conversation about living preferences and standards, which is a huge value proposition in this service.
Because we are no longer framing this as a rental model, we had to reconsider what happens when something breaks. First of all, our service will provide a certification of quality for each item delivered that guarantees free replacement if the issue is not the housemates’ fault. (We will pick up the broken item and attempt to repair it behind the scenes.) When things do break, one of the housemates will report the issue with as much relevant information as possible so that we can decide what path to take. If the issue seems to be self-fixable, we will send along instructions for DIY troubleshooting and repair. If the item might be repaired on-site, we will coordinate the scheduling of a third-party repairman with the housemates. If it might be repaired off-site, we will deliver a replacement, pick up the broken one, and attempt to repair it behind the scenes. If the item is beyond repair and it is clear that the issue is due to negligence or purposeful damage by the housemates or someone else in the house, we will offer the opportunity to buy a replacement item through our service (paying again for the new item). Repair and/or replacement costs will be taken out of the final reimbursement.
After nailing down more details of the blueprint, we moved into writing our service proposition:
Our service provides affordable household items for young adults sharing temporary living spaces and creates opportunity for conversations about living preferences and standards.
Our discussions allowed us to determine which touchpoint prototypes would be most important for our pitch:
- Wireframe flows: creating house account, completing individual shopping carts and approving the shared one, reporting process (Allison)
- Physical prototype: CAD drawing of pod (Gabe)
- Email drafts: invitation, confirmation/approval, “how was your pod”, maintenance/repair, move-out (Angela)
04.21 Reviewing Prototypes, Pitch/Case Study Outline
At our work session, we went over the prototypes we each created and discussed what we want to present in our pitch and case study. We also settled on a name for our service: Split It.
Wireframes were created for a home page, creation of a house account, individual cart view and confirmation, shared cart view and confirmation, and report form. Key screens are shown here.
While we don’t plan to have a physical prototype for our physical touchpoint (the pod), we have created a CAD drawing and will show it in context. We will also brand it with our logo and color scheme.
Because emails have emerged as an important touchpoint in our service, we are also prototyping what the content of the emails could be and how they might appear in your inbox.
In talking more about the final presentations, we’ve decided that we need to be more specific about why and how this service is valuable. Instead of presenting a predominantly scenario-based pitch, we plan to use the scenario to illustrate our service but also discuss the problem space and the emergent value we expect to see as a result of our service. Because many college students might buy into our service because it’s cheaper and easier to coordinate than making multiple Uber/Lyft trips to Target or Costco with less regard for the conversations that our service hopes to provoke, we want to discuss as well as act out what those conversations might look like and how they’re mediated by the shared shopping cart concept. We’re also writing a case study outline based on this documentation blog and the prompts Molly emailed out to the class that help cull important decision points from our process.
04.25 Diagram Skeletons
From our working blueprint and value flow diagrams, we created more formalized files that will get “branded” with Split It’s visual language. Since the file doesn’t fit well in Medium, a PDF is available of this in-progress file that can be zoomed in to view details. Some of the top squares will be filled in with illustrations and/or storyboard frames to highlight important moments.
We met up to create slides for our pitch, nail down lines, and prepare for our first dry run in class. We are starting with our logo and slug line, setup of the problem space, and an introduction of our values before moving into describing our service more fully. Then we walk through a short scenario of how Split It might be used (signing in, individual carts, shared cart, approval, moving in, maintenance, moving out). We conclude with a very short review of our three values: housemate relationships, items, and the environment.
4.26 Pitch Revamp, Case Study
After running through our pitch in class and getting a lot of useful feedback, we decided to restructure our pitch to have more clarity and focus. We’ve chosen to focus more on roommate relationships and accountability. We’ve also edited our slug line to be more clear about what it is our service actually does, instead moving our secondary values to a different part of the pitch.
The biggest change we’re making is in our scenario. We’ve completely eliminated the maintenance section, which we will touch on instead within the case study. We are focusing more on the individual and shared shopping cart interaction and will use ourselves as role-players rather than personas. Finally, we are going to make changes to our UI and our story to account for scenarios in which roommates can’t sit together physically. Because students are usually at home or interning over the summer but would like to have their items ready on their move-in day (and we don’t count on them setting up a Split It account that far in advance), we are designing a video chat feature into our website that allows them to discuss “face-to-face” their shared shopping cart decisions.
Putting together our case study turned out to be pretty difficult because of sheer amount of work we’ve done. We wanted to be able to capture it all and present it but had to cut out so much to fit within the given timeframe. We plan to spend just one slide talking about the foster care that we did in the first month, and then talk through our transition to housing, keeping in mind what we learned from foster care. Then we will talk about the various ideas we researched, the provocations and prototypes we did, the pivots we took even within housing, and then speak a little bit more to how we made the decisions for our final service (talking specifically about pricing, the shared shopping cart, and the maintenance pathways).
