ShareASpace
Hypothesis
Share A Space is a platform that offers a virtual market for spare space that appeals to college students for cost, accessibility, and safe appeal. It also offers both institutions and homeowners easily repurpose spaces which can now bring revenue. It is an easy, affordable, and accessible alternative to storage units for students while homeowners can make more efficient use of spare space and earn extra money.
The first stakeholders are students. Students often face the problem of needing storage space for their belongings as they move back and forth frequently during the year. The second stakeholders are institutions and local property owners who find that they have spare space to rent to students and are interested in generating income.
UI UX Course
Teammates
Sarah Frix, Jennifer Kim
Supervisor
Adam Smith
My Skills
Market Research
High-Fidelity Interface Design
Motion Design
Competitors Research
Jones Moving & Storage
Neighbor
Vertoe
Facebook Marketplace
Service scope
Providence only
Collaborating with RISD
Cover entire US (however, not every city has this service)
NY only
Cover entire US
Network Size
Space Type
Price
Small network
Company’s own space
Prices starts from $300, however, it includes transportation and packing service fee.
Medium network
Private space
Prices starts from $5.95/day/item
UI Design
Interface score: 1
Interface score: 4
Small network
Commercial stores' space
Prices starts from $7.95/day/item (can be paid hourly)
Large network
Private space
Prices paid monthly.
Interface score: 2
Interface score: 3
Design Matrix
User Experience
Home-owned business, In a way, it's safer. But it lacks a security verification system and some monitoring feedback for customers to see.
Facebook is a chat app, so marketspace has the ability to chat and view merchants information. However, some way of security verification is missing, and the transaction is private without security guarantees.
Neighbor has a comfortable interface, however, lacks some security verification and requires a request to rent space, making it somewhat unsuitable for people with urgent needs. There is a little guarantee of safety - that is, costumers can choose to buy insurance.
Vertoe has a comfortable interface, however, lacks some security verification and requires a request to rent space, making it somewhat unsuitable for people with urgent needs.
Market Gap
Feeling of security: Apart from the security control function of the App itself, in theory, the more customers communicate with the merchant, the better they know the merchant and the more secure they feel.
Spatial commerciality: Divided into private property empty space and commercial space. Private Property space on private property can be divided into spaces for spare houses and spaces where the landlord lives but has spare rooms. The closer to the origin of the coordinate axis, the stronger the privacy.
Design opportunity: Since we are all students with a design background, we're going to focus on designing a good security verification system because trust and security are very important in this app. Furthermore, most current existing apps use commercial spaces for luggage storage. We will focus on building a community - people can share the empty space of their property and get the most out of them.
Questionnaire Survey
We sent out questionnaires to people around us and received a total of 20 valid responses. From the survey results, it can be seen that 45% of the respondents would like to sublet their vacant houses. After subletting, 45% of them would choose to store their original luggage in commercial luggage storage, while 40% would choose to store their luggage at a friend's house. The items in their luggage are mainly clothes and electronic products. Since most of the surveyed individuals are students at RISD and RISD has a partnership with Jones Moving & Storage, 45% of them would look for this store as a commercial luggage storage place.
Persona
Institution (RISD)
Homeowner
About: Josh was born and raised in St. Louis, MO. He attended Murray State University, where he graduated with a B.S. in Business and an MBA.
Goals: He hopes to enhance the on-campus student experience while maintaining a solid and defined structure.
Name: Josh Jones
Age: 32
Occupation: Director of RISD Residence Life
Motivations:
1. A high-quality service to help students' problems.
2. Help the RISD Residence Life segment increase revenue.
3. Improve students' happiness index in RISD.
About: Her oldest son has just moved out permanently so his room is now an empty space. Grace is not wanting to downsize anytime soon, but bills are not getting any cheaper.
Goals: Make some extra pocket money that doesn’t require her to have to take another job.
Name: Grace Lane
Age: 53
Occupation: Sales Assistant
Motivations:
1. Something that makes money but doesn't require a lot of effort.
2. Meet different and interesting people.
Student
About: Claire is from Fort Lee, NJ. She majors in Textiles. She has an internship each summer and will sublet her own place.
Disappointment:
She has lots of school materials and large appliances like a heater to deal with when sublets her space.
Goals: She wants a place that is safe and close to the house to store her belongings. Also, she needs help with the luggage.
Name: Claire Wang
Age: 21
Occupation: Undergraduate
Motivations:
1. A high-quality service to help students' problems.
2. Help the RISD Residence Life segment increase revenue.
3. Improve students' happiness index in RISD.
Name: Mark Henderson
Age: 19
Occupation: undergraduate
About: Mark is from Chicago, Illinois. He majors in Computer Science. He prefers to spend his summer with his family back home.
Disappointment:
He has lots of clothing and electronic appliances that he needs to store over the break since he lives in the school dormitories and his home is far.
Goals: He wants a place like a commercial storage space where it is close to his school. Also, he prefers a driver to pick up his belongings.
Motivations:
1. Full service which includes transportation of heavy items.
2. Insured security for loss and damages.
3. The environment of storage space is not prone to theft.
Storyboard
Student
RISD (Institition)
Information Architecture
To enhance the user experience, we have focused on considering how to add some functions to the app to improve the security of the storage service process. The highlighted areas in red are methods that foster familiarity and increase trust between homeowners and students.
High Fidelity Interfaces
Future High Tech
Use AR to automatically measure luggage for students and generate floor plans for institutions/homeowners.
