MoveTruths
Merging social media and moving assistance to make relocation smoother and more connected
My Role
My Team
Project Timeline
Tools Used
Overview
Problem
Moving comes with an unusual number of unforeseen costs, social problems, and new rule adjustments.
When moving to a new location, many people spend countless hours, days even, looking through different resources (apartments.com, Reddit, Google, etc.). It takes a lot of time out of your regular day especially when you need to get back to your schedule ASAP and often gets very messy overall.
Research Time
The major concern came from moving costs, amenities, and unforeseen problems.
I sat down with 5 target users and asked them about their experiences involving moving to a new location whether it was nationally or internationally and the results were quite surprising to me:
4/5 users struggled from unforeseen problems (missing things from apartments, amenities, sudden fees, etc.)
5/5 users couldn't seem to adjust to their new homes from being unable to adjust socially
4/5 users believed the move would've been easier if they knew people ahead of time or done more research
This proved that while research can help with the overall process, it's hard without insider knowledge.
Introducing
MoveTruths
Who's My Competition?
I took a look at moving applications that focused on moving services/advice and community building.
Simple design and functionality
Shows a wide variety of services for users
Provides specific details such as move calculations and moving trackers
Support only comes from calling their number
Only helps with the physical move
Not much to do besides hiring movers
Acts like a social media platform for your neighborhood
Shows a wide variety of services for users related to after the physical move
Does not help with the physical move
Privacy concerns with users
Useful only for the local neighborhood and not moving
Provides a lot of transparency regarding moving services
Lots of flexible services are available
Very helpful for urban living
Useful for small/local jobs
Not available in every city
Not ideal for long time planning
Key Functions
Social Media
The social media aspect works like any other SNS app to help users feel more familiar with the layout and find tips from locals a lot easier.
Moving Services
The app will also have a list of services to help out with the moving so that it can all be tracked within the app itself.
Communities
To help further with social integration, the communities tab helps people reach out to locals with the same interests as theirs.
Reflection
In my personal experience, no project or product out there is perfect; there is always room for improvement wherever you go. Going into this project, I did have some UX experience but I still struggled with certain parts of the process. So how did I improve?
Narrowing down research into specific themes require a lot more insight into the problem than expected.
Identifying and categorizing proper feedback into my iterated prototypes.
Learning to expand upon visual design beyond the scope of color and typography.