SaintsSelect

Background

Siena’s current roommate matching process often feels unreliable and difficult to navigate. Students only provide limited information about themselves, which can lead to random or poorly matched roommate assignments. Many students said the process made it hard to express important lifestyle preferences or get a sense of who they would be living with. Because of this, roommate conflicts can happen over things like sleep schedules, cleanliness, social habits, or study routines. These issues can make the transition into college more stressful than it needs to be.

My partner and I saw an opportunity to redesign the experience from scratch; to create a system that prioritizes compatibility, transparency, and ease of use for Siena students.

Siena’s original roommate matching form lacked structure, personalization, and meaningful compatibility indicators.

The Process

Our design process focused on understanding student frustrations and turning those insights into a better roommate matching experience.

• Discovery
  We started by researching Siena’s current roommate matching system and gathering feedback from students through questionnaires and conversations. We wanted to learn what students disliked about the current process and what they wished it included instead.
• Definition
  After reviewing our research, we identified a few major issues: unclear matching criteria, limited student input, outdated profile information, and a process that felt difficult to navigate. These insights helped us define the main problems we wanted to solve.
• Ideation
  We explored different ideas through sketches, wireframes, and user flows. During this stage, we focused on making the experience feel simple, approachable, and easy to use while still helping students make meaningful roommate connections.
• Delivery
  The final outcome was a high-fidelity Figma mockup design that showed the full roommate matching experience, including onboarding, compatibility-based profiles, and student messaging features.

Research & Insights

Our research focused on understanding why students felt dissatisfied with Siena’s current roommate matching system and what they believed would improve the experience. We collected feedback through student questionnaires and conversations with Siena students. A majority of students described the current process as stressful, unclear, and too random.

Some of the biggest concerns students mentioned included:
- Not enough personality or lifestyle questions
- Random roommate assignments
- Difficulty knowing if someone would be compatible
- Limited communication between potential roommates
- Outdated or incomplete profile information

The Solution

SaintsSelect creates a more personalized and student-friendly roommate matching experience designed specifically for Siena students.

Smarter Matching Questionnaire
The app begins with a simple five-step questionnaire that guides students through important lifestyle and living preferences. Instead of one long form, the questions are broken into smaller sections that feel easier to complete.

The questionnaire focuses on topics like:
- Sleep habits
- Cleanliness
- Room temperature
- Study preferences
- Social habits

This approach helps students share more meaningful information while making the onboarding experience feel less overwhelming.

Compatibility-Based Profiles
Students can browse roommate profiles that highlight compatibility based on shared habits and preferences. Profiles are designed to make it easier to quickly understand if someone could be a good roommate match. The platform also includes built-in messaging connected to Siena email accounts so students can safely communicate with potential roommates directly within the app.

By combining matching, profiles, and messaging into one platform, SaintsSelect creates a more connected and less stressful roommate search experience.

Results & Takeaways

SaintsSelect received positive feedback from students, especially for its modern design, ease of use, and focus on compatibility. Many students described the platform as feeling more engaging and easier to navigate than Siena’s current roommate matching process.
One student commented:

“It comes across as streamlined and more ‘fun’ to use than the existing roommate matching system.”

The project was later presented to Siena’s Software Engineering program for continued development into a fully functional, full stack application.

• Takeaway one: Student feedback should guide the design process.
  Hearing directly from students helped shape features that addressed real frustrations and needs.
• Takeaway two: Good roommate matches can improve the college experience.
  Finding compatible roommates can help reduce conflict, create stronger social connections, and make the transition into college smoother.
• Takeaway three: Simple design choices can make stressful experiences feel easier.
  Breaking the process into smaller steps and creating a cleaner interface made the experience feel more approachable and user-friendly.

Check out the full Figma prototype here!