CI Participants

To preface, the people we interviewed are a student living off-campus, a past JA who now serves on JAAB, and a first-year student. Each contextual inquiry took place in a different setting. For easier reference, we will call the student living off-campus A, the student on JAAB B, and the first-year student C. No prompting was needed during any of three contextual inquiries. A key finding is that our people seem to have mixed feelings about the people they live with. While B and C want to meet and know the people they are living with, A is uninterested. A and C both struggled with getting information about their living arrangements; A had trouble getting it from her landlord whereas C could not find information on the College’s website. B and C struggled with the larger entry system which felt overwhelming for both. The issues shared by A and C seemed to intersect the most because both are people moving into new places. Meanwhile, B seemed to share the least in common with C because they are different in two important aspects: A lives off-campus and isn’t required to know her neighbors whereas B lives on-campus after years of doing so and it is his job to bring his roommates/entrymates closer together. Speaking of entries, B and C relate because it is both of their first time living in the larger entry system.

A’s contextual inquiry was held in her apartment. We were told that she had difficulty communicating with her landlord even before the contract was signed. The landlord was non-receptive to sharing pictures of the apartment so person A moved in not knowing what her living space would look like. Additionally, getting in contact with the landlord continues to be difficult because all communication is done via text or email. What we noticed during the contextual inquiry was the lack of delegation and communication within the apartment. We learned that A’s neighbors and herself have trouble keeping track of the bills and who paid for certain amenities that month. What was interesting about A’s inquiry was her disinterest in knowing some of her neighbors, which we thought would be otherwise when we first started the project.

Meanwhile, both B and C’s contextual inquiry took place in Mission Park, a first-year dorm. B’s contextual inquiry revealed to us that communication and the size of the entry was an issue. The large size of the entry system that started with the class of 2022 increased entry sizes from 20 the year before to 40 and as many as 50. B struggled with giving individualized attention to his entry of 45 frosh and found communication in the Groupme difficult with so many people messaging it at once. During snacks, the common room did not have enough space to fit everyone and people needed to stand in spaces next to the common room to semi-participate in the activities. What was interesting about B’s contextual inquiry was the amount of information taught during his JA training and how a portion of it was the resources on campus. Ironically, there’s a poster of that in every first-year dorm’s common room, but no one looks at it because it’s too much information and is hard to know which group/person fits their needs.

C’s contextual inquiry focused on her first time living away from home and her lack of information provided by the College on her housing situation. Concerns include what will be in the dorm (will she need to bring her own garbage can? Mattress? Etc.), the square footage of the dorm, what the dorm looks like, and so forth. For someone who has not lived in a college dorm yet, these are reasonable questions, and the College’s lack of pictures of its dorms as shown by C during the inquiry further validated those concerns. C also feels uncomfortable sharing a bathroom space with the opposite gender and while the entry should be a place of comfort, there are too many names to remember and she feels bad for not remembering all of them.

The process of identifying our themes are based on the problems experienced by A, B, and C. All three have housing-related issues and they vary based on the type and the people involved. For instance, one of our high level themes noticed was an excessive amount of information. We created this theme after noticing the comments “common room resources go unnoticed” and “too many resources for frosh to navigate through.” As a result, we decided that there is a lot of information provided on campus, almost to an excessive amount where people no longer look at them because there is too much to look at. Hence, we created the theme “too much information to look at” as a problem we may want to address in our project. The other themes created are “inaccessible prior information,” “control and record of money,” “too many people,” “problems communicating with administration,” and “communication with neighbors.”

All of the themes mentioned are user tasks we can design for. A lot of these include problems that intersect with each other that we can collectively address together in our design.

High level themes:

  • inaccessible prior information
  • Too many people
  • too much information to look at
  • problems with communicating with administration
  • control/record of money
  • Communication with neighbors

Affinity Diagram

  1. Users

Our users are people who want to have housing information easily accessible. This includes the numbers of facilities and deans for college students living on-campus and the repairman, landlord, and doorman for those who have their own place. Additionally, these users may also want to connect with people in their living space. Our users are also people looking for housing. This can include first-time renters or people moving into an unfamiliar area and are looking for places of reference. For the most part, these users are people who need help navigating the housing system.

  1. Present

Currently, people looking for housing information may try to find contact information from other people who live in the same building and have used the service before. They may also try to find contact information online and/or a directory that may be outdated. There is no certainty that information is accurate. As for people looking for housing, specifically young professionals not looking to buy property yet, people often look at sites like Craigslist or through word-of-mouth for people who are also looking for roommates.

  1. What tasks are desired?

Tasks desired for our design would be to streamline information into an organized and easy-to-access manner. A chat system is also desirable that can be organized into different settings, such as a roommate chat, a general building chat, and individual chast between residents and administration. An event’ feature is also desirable, where people within the apartment can post events they are hosting so that other residents can RSVP to it. This way we can address the “too many people” problem by creating multiple group chat options so messages can be sent to a specific group as opposed to the entire building unit.

  1. How are the tasks learned?

The tasks learned were usually done from word of mouth where people asked other people for contact information or shared information about events happening in the building. However, people who are constantly busy and would need to schedule time for these events are likely to be out of the loop and therefore won’t be able to attend. As for housing, people normally learn through trial and error or personal network connections that serve as advisors. Overall, the housing process for many first-timers does get messy.

  1. Where are the tasks performed?

The task of sharing information such as numbers and events happening is done in passing or via communication devices like the phone. As for the process of figuring out housing, it can be done through in-person-meetings, phone/video call, or email, and often comes with some sort of in-person tour of the living space.

  1. What is the relationship between the person and data?

The relationship between the data and the person is that the data is supposed to make housing-related parts of life more convenient for the person. The data is supposed to make information more accessible and also serve as a method of communication within the housing network. All housing-related information should be centered in the data so that the person does not need to look beyond it for any of their housing-related needs.

  1. What other tools does the person have?

The person’s tools include Google, Craigslist, and forms of social media to communicate with roommates/apartment mates. People may also be tools as they can provide housing-related information.

  1. How do people communicate with each other?

People communicate with each other in our design through group chats and individual chats. The chat with the apartment will be a group chat so that information can be sent out quickly and effortlessly whereas the chat with the landlord will be on an individual basis where if a tenant has an issue they’d need to message the landlord privately. Smaller group chats can also be made within the residential system so that people who share the same interests can have a chat to themselves.

  1. How often are the tasks performed?

Certain chats are used more frequently than others and under different circumstances. People who use the app to chat regularly with other people in their residential system will do so frequently whereas those who use it to contact administration will do so whenever a problem (e.g. sewage, lighting, etc.) comes up which varies but is likely occasionally/rarely.

  1. What are the time constraints on the tasks?

The time constraints on the task varies based on the context of the chat. For instance, if someone’s apartment runs out of electricity and contacts the landlord, the landlord has a large time constraint and should respond to it immediately. Meanwhile, a residential system planning a holiday potluck a month away from now is asking what everyone plans to bring has a smaller time constraint because people have time to look back at the chat and decide later.

  1. What happens when things go wrong?

When the information provided is wrong, users should be able to report it as incorrect so changes can be made. There can also be the option of upvoting and downvoting information based on how useful they were which gages how factual certain information is. Similar to how Yelp has a feature where restaurant owners can “claim” their business on the app, landlords can do so too so that they can update the information.