CU Apartments is a newly launched website developed by Cornell DTI with the goal of making Cornellians’ housing search less stressful and more equitable. On our site, students can explore hundreds of properties around Ithaca, read about their peers’ experiences, and share their own housing stories. I worked on a feature that allows users to view and modify their own reviews, as well as save and revisit properties and reviews they’ve found valuable.
CU Apartments, also known as CUAPTS, is a product designed and developed by Cornell DTI, a project team dedicated to creating social impact on campus. CUAPTS was created in response to the difficult and time-consuming off-campus housing hunt that has been an age-old issue for Cornell students of all backgrounds. Students can explore an extensive database of properties around Ithaca, allowing them to gain insights from their peers’ experiences and contribute their own housing stories.
After years of development, we are thrilled to announce the launch of version 1 in Fall 2023! Key features of this version include:
While version 1 of CUAPTS already has the potential to revolutionize the Cornell housing experience, there are several ways in which the user experience can be enhanced. For version 2.0 of the platform, I was tasked with what my PM called a “Profile” feature — a page that aims to alleviate the following pain points:
Considering the broad nature of this feature, I wanted to explore reviewing sites similar to CUAPTS — such as Yelp, Tripadvisor, Apartments.com, and Airbnb — and answer the following questions:
While conducting market research, several common elements became apparent across platforms. These findings, combined with ideas generated by our team, collectively formed a list of potential concepts to explore:
1. Bookmarks and collections
2. View and edit past reviews
3. Recommendations
4. Recent Activity
5. “Karma”
There were three initial versions of what this profile page should look like:
Given the diverse nature of these elements and their lack of direct correlation (recommended apartments and recent activity, for instance, have little in common), visually, it made the most sense to arrange them within separate boxes on the dashboard.
Still, the overall page lacked cohesion and its content was notably unconventional, as market research revealed that few other products presented all this information on a single screen. Then, I had my eureka moment:
Rather than presenting all this information on a single consolidated page, I opted for a two-page approach: a “Profile” page and a “Saved” page, each dedicated to displaying the most relevant elements.
When collaborating within a cross-functional team, it’s essential to engage in discussions regarding the feasibility and usability of the features you intend to implement. Past reviews and saved properties were the foundation of this feature, and were clearly the most desired and practical features, as indicated by prior user and market research.
The recent activity section was the first to be removed from consideration. It was deemed unfeasible and impractical, as it would have provided minimal value to the user experience relative to the considerable effort required for its design and development. Additionally, my PM and I talked about the feasibility of the recommended section, and she noted that implementing it at this stage in CUAPTS’s development would be exceptionally challenging, if not impossible.
Before CUAPTS, Cornell students heavily relied on Reddit for housing information unless they stumbled upon it through word of mouth. Over the years, there have been many 1000+ character posts written on r/Cornell, passionately warning underclassmen to avoid specific landlords and retelling detailed narratives of their encounters with certain properties.
The ability to merely save properties does not provide users with a comprehensive understanding of other users’ mixed sentiments — both positive and negative — towards those properties. If users are able to save reviews, they can preserve valuable information that they may find beneficial for future reference. Thus, I decided to add a “Saved Reviews” section to the “Saved” page.
The page is divided into two sections: the profile card, which displays the user’s information and statistics, and the “My Reviews” section. Within the “My Reviews” section, users can manage their reviews, with options to edit and delete them (made discreetly available via an ellipsis icon to discourage hasty alterations). Additionally, users can sort their reviews using various criteria, including recency and the number of upvotes.
I experimented with several different layouts for the Saved page. Each iteration came with its own set of advantages and drawbacks, and I finally settled on a final design combining elements from each of them.
Before finalizing my designs, I conducted user testing with seven Cornell students, giving them tasks such as deleting a review and removing a saved property. The insights below came from the process of synthesizing the interviews and identifying themes and patterns.
The profile page was very intuitive and easily navigable, but I made a few adjustments, the largest being getting rid of the “Karma” section in order to not encourage users to write more reviews than they were capable of providing.
The “Saved Reviews” section on the saved page generated quite a bit of confusion, however. Therefore, I implemented several small but important changes aimed at clarifying the purpose of this section and how users can effectively utilize it.
This has been an incredibly rewarding project, and I have learned a lot from the PMs, developers, and fellow designers on DTI:
Going forward, I will be working closely with the CUAPTS developers as they work to deploy version 2.0 to ensure the successful implementation of my designs. I cannot wait to see the student body’s reaction to our launch, and I plan to continue working on and helping shape CUAPTS into a product that makes a meaningful impact on the Cornell community.
