ROLE

UX Researcher

UX Researcher

UX Researcher

UX Researcher

time

4 months

4 months

4 months

4 months

direction

Civic Design

Civic Design

Civic Design

Civic Design

team

Kyung Jin Kim, Ethan Zhao, Rosie Ye, Samhith Mitra

Image of LeaseBuddy login page
Image of LeaseBuddy login page
Weather app image
Weather app image
Weather app image
Weather app image

The Challenge

The Challenge

The Challenge

The Challenge

Most college students are first-time renters or lack the experience. In other words, they lack the knowledge to understand their leasing applications and advocate for themselves during the housing search process if there are unfair or illegal stipulations within their lease.

Research Question

How might we improve the off-campus leasing process to introduce more transparency for students?

Goal

Break down the legal mumbo-jumbo, highlight the most important stuff, and give personalized advice to students based on their specific needs

Why should we care?

Moving to off-campus apartments is a common practice among college students to obtain better living conditions with lower monthly rate. However, students renting off-campus housing often face significant challenges due to a lack of awareness of their tenant rights, which make them susceptible to exploitation.

Moving to off-campus apartments is a common practice among college students to obtain better living conditions with lower monthly rate. However, students renting off-campus housing often face significant challenges due to a lack of awareness of their tenant rights, which make them susceptible to exploitation.

Moving to off-campus apartments is a common practice among college students to obtain better living conditions with lower monthly rate. However, students renting off-campus housing often face significant challenges due to a lack of awareness of their tenant rights, which make them susceptible to exploitation.

Moving to off-campus apartments is a common practice among college students to obtain better living conditions with lower monthly rate. However, students renting off-campus housing often face significant challenges due to a lack of awareness of their tenant rights, which make them susceptible to exploitation.

Academic Research

First-time renters are unlikely to be familiar with standard lease terms, tenant rights, or their responsibilities, making them more susceptible to unknowingly agreeing to unfavorable conditions (Walsh 2021)


Students may feel pressured to accept unfavorable lease terms because they are afraid of losing housing (Razak et al., 2019)


International students are often subjected to discrimination by landlords who imposed illegal rent increases or demanded proof of citizenship (Arumugam, 2023)

Background Research

It's hard to know your rights as a tenant!

  • Cities, counties, states, and various jurisdictions all vary on what your rights are

  • Lack of consolidated resource platform that clearly explain the tenant rights where you live

    • Case in point: Even the 2021 Georgia Landlord-Tenant Handbook states that content may not be update to date with the Georgia landlord-tenant law

  • Most students are not versed with legal terminology

  • Many housing resources focus on eviction, but not necessarily the process of leasing

Who is this for?

Let's operationalize what we envision the end-users to be and what their practices and characteristics may be to drive our generative research. These details were informed by a literature review.

Primary Group Characteristics

  • Undergraduates aged 18-24

    • This range is used by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to track college enrollment in a 4-year college or university

  • Enrollment in a four-year public/nonprofit university

    • According to results from the 2016 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 46% of public four-year undergraduates are living off-campus (Urban Institute, undated)

  • Limited financial resources

    • The Pew Research Center reports that the share of dependent undergraduates from low-income families has risen at four-year institutions has risen across the board

  • Limited experience with leasing contracts

  • Based in the metro-Atlanta area

    • Housing in metro Atlanta is 13% more expensive than the average metro area (Atlanta Regional Commission, 2022)

Current User Practices

  1. Accepting housing compromises and subpar conditions

  2. Relying heavily on informal networks and social connections

  3. Seeking temporary or short-term housing arrangements

Stakeholders

  • Parents and guardians of students

  • Property managers and landlords

  • Universities with third-party housing support partnerships

  • Local legal resources, like legal aid clinics or pro-bono representation

Uncovering user needs

How we approached our problem space to gather more information on users' current practices and pain points relevant to the leasing process.

Task Analysis

Developing two hierarchical task analyses based on background research:

  • How students find housing based on their considerations (e.g. price, location)

  • How students tend to review their leasing documents


We used these HTAs to ensure that the questions/items in our surveys and interviews targeted important steps in each process

Semi-Structured Interviews

Objective: Learn about individual leasing practices and experiences, as well as pain points in current practices related to housing rights


Details: 30-minute sessions to capture housing search and process of reading leases. Interviews were shorter as participants’ experiences were often limited


Participants: 9 undergraduate and graduate students in the US with off-campus leasing experiences. Affiliated academic institution and housing experiences varied across interviewees.


Analysis: Affinity mapping to inform thematic analysis

Surveys

Objective: Learn about students’ familiarity with their housing leases, perception of fairness, experiences with housing issues, and strategies for housing issues


Justification: Collect quantifiable data from a larger sample size to observe patterns and evaluate interview findings


Participants: 22 undergraduate students at Georgia Tech


Analysis: Qualtrics Analytics + central tendency statistics + visualizations through Tableau

Research findings + design implications

A quick overview of our consolidated findings across surveys, interviews, and background research.

Findings

  • Reliance on interpersonal networks as a main source of information

  • Prevalence of digital leases increases accessibility for students

  • Students often skim or read select portions of their leases

  • Most students have difficulty perceiving the fairness of their lease

  • Students are not aware of reliable resources to help them understand their leases

Design Requirements

  1. Simplify communication of lease terms

  2. Multi-lingual support for international students

  3. Highlight unfair and discriminatory practices

  4. Foster a mutual help network

  5. Offer location-specific resources

  6. Reflect the diverse needs of students

Initial design features

Iterative design

We are currently undergoing discount evaluation of our prototype to iterate on our hi-fi prototype and finalize meta-level design decisions.

Discount evaluations

Objective:


Participants:


Findings:

Changes to implement

To be updated upon completion of discount evaluations!

Results

Results

Results

Results

Come back to see the outcomes, reflections, and achievements of the project.

TBA

TBA

LinkedIn

Work

Resume

Fun