RoamMate

RoamMate

A co-living travel app designed to help solo travelers find affordable shared spaces and the connections that make the journey worthwhile.

Duration

  • 3 Months

Role

End-to-End UX/UI Designer

View Prototype

Platform

iOS/Android Mobile App

01

Introduction

Solo travel shouldn't mean traveling alone.

Solo travel has grown dramatically in recent years, yet the platforms designed to support it have barely caught up. Airbnb and Expedia offer lodging, but no community. Coliving.com requires a month-long commitment. There's no mainstream product that helps solo travelers find affordable, short-term shared accommodation and connect with the people they'll be sharing it with.

"People sometimes opt out of traveling somewhere because of the initial costs of places to stay, or are afraid to travel alone to foreign countries."

RoamMate was designed to close that gap, a platform where solo travelers can book co-living spaces, learn about potential co-inhabitants before arriving, and build genuine connections with people who share the same passion for exploration.

The project was completed as a Capstone end-to-end design project, and I served as the sole UX/UI designer across every phase from initial research through high-fidelity prototype and usability testing.

3

core problem statements identified from research, each inspiring a design direction

100%

usability test task completion rate across both rounds of testing

5

usability test participants with real solo travel experience

4

prioritized design iterations made after final testing round

02

Research

Listening before designing.

Method: User Interviews

  • Remote, moderated sessions with participants who had prior solo travel experience

  • Questions explored booking habits, shared living experiences, and motivations for travel

  • Participants also spoke to remote work needs when traveling

  • Sessions surfaced both emotional and practical pain points around co-living

Competitive Landscape

  • Airbnb: popular but doesn't show guest profiles, limited trust signals

  • Expedia: no community aspect, purely transactional

  • Coliving.com: requires 1-month minimum, not viable for short-term travel

  • Couchsurfing: community-focused but lacks affordability structure

  • Gap identified: no platform targets short-term co-living with guest discovery

What Users Wanted

  • Visibility into co-inhabitants before committing to a booking

  • Affordable options that don't sacrifice authenticity or location

  • A reliable internet environment for remote workers

  • Connections that could organically turn into travel companions

Key Frustrations Surfaced

  • Visibility into co-inhabitants before committing to a booking

  • Affordable options that don't sacrifice authenticity or location

  • A reliable internet environment for remote workers

  • Connections that could organically turn into travel companions

The Central Insight

Users weren't just looking for somewhere cheap to sleep — they wanted context, connection, and confidence. The right platform could normalize solo travel by reducing the unknowns that make it feel risky.

Trust & Transparency

Affordability

Cultural Immersion

Remote Work Compatible

Community Discovery

03

Define

From Insights to a Design Direction.

With research complete, I synthesized findings into a primary persona and three "How Might We" problem statements that would govern every design decision going forward. I took a largely iterative approach, designing, testing, and refining in cycles, rather than locking in decisions early.

The persona, Rachel Rey, a 23-year-old artist from Texas, embodied the target user perfectly: extroverted and spontaneous, deeply motivated by new experiences and human connection, but frustrated by the affordability and trust issues that kept getting in her way.

"How might we make staying in the house a better experience for users with a desire to bond with other travelers?"

"How might we speed up the booking process by reducing the time users spend looking for their perfect house to rent?"

"How might we make the product feel centered around solo travel, pushing for it to feel mainstream?"

Deliverables at this stage

User Persona

Sitemap

Problem Statements

Rachel Ray - Primary Persona

User Flows

Task Flows

How Might We’s

04

DESIGN

Building the Experience, screen-by-screen.

RoamMate Hi-Fi wireframes

The design process moved from low-fidelity sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes before arriving at the high-fidelity prototype shown above. Each step was grounded in the user flows and task scenarios defined during the Define phase.

The visual language draws from the app's name: clean open spaces, cool blues that evoke travel and sky, with warm accents suggesting the human warmth of connection. The design intentionally leans toward a clean card-based layout to mirror the gesture-heavy familiarity users already have from Airbnb, reducing friction for first-time users.

Key screens designed include the full booking flow (sign-up → search → host/join details → payment → confirmation), a Plannings/visited history, Favorites, an in-app messaging system, and rich user profiles showing stamped locations, acting as a trust signal for co-inhabitants.

Design Highlights

→ Guest profiles visible before booking — directly addressing the #1 user frustration

→ "Host" vs. "Join" split — empowering both sides of the co-living dynamic

→ Stamped Locations on user profiles add authenticity and spark conversation

→ Plannings tab keeps future and past trips organized in one place

→ Messaging built directly into the app removes the need for external contact

Mid-Fi Sketches

Component Library

Branding

Mid-Fi Sketches

Lo-Fi Sketches

05

TEST

Testing Confirmed What Worked, and What Needed Rethinking

100%

Task completion rate across both test tasks

5

Moderated remote participants all with prior travel experience

This was the second round of usability testing, conducted remotely via recorded video sessions with moderation. Users were given two tasks: booking a stay, and connecting with another traveler. The testing validated that the core flows were intuitive, but surfaced some friction points worth iterating on.

One particularly interesting finding: 4 out of 5 users navigated to the traveler connection through the messaging tab rather than through the Plannings/visited history as designed. This revealed that users are more comfortable reaching profiles through familiar social patterns, chat logs, rather than a booking history view.

"Users would work around the center of the home screen first, showing the visual hierarchy is working as planned."

0

Major errors ~ no user fully lost their way
or restarted

Iterations (Priority Order)

1

Relocate & Redesign Search

Move from bottom to top as a prominent search bar, users consistently noticed it last or not at all.

2

Clarify CTA Copy

Replace "Book" with context-specific labels like "Next" or "Proceed to Payment" to reduce
confusion mid-flow.

3

Expand Filter Options

Add sort-by-price and sort-by-rating inside the filter screen, not just as separate buttons.

4

Add Message Button on Profiles

After connecting with a traveler, surface a direct message CTA to make the next step obvious.

06

CONCLUSION

Reflections, Lessons, and What Comes Next

Challenges Faced

  • Balancing a dual-sided platform (hosts and guests) within a single, coherent flow without overcomplicating either experience

  • Designing for trust, finding the right amount of profile information to surface without feeling invasive

  • The "Host" button's visual prominence consistently drew users' attention away from joining flows, requiring careful hierarchy adjustments

  • Defining a clear end state for the "connect with traveler" task, users weren't sure when they'd succeeded

Next Steps

  • Finalize all four iterations from the second usability test

  • Develop a review and rating system for co-inhabitants post-stay

  • Explore a "Travel Group" feature for users who want to coordinate plans with connections they've made

  • Design an onboarding preference flow to better match users to compatible co-inhabitants from the start

What I Learned

  • Users navigate by pattern recognition, designing around familiar social metaphors (chat → profile) is more effective than logical information architecture alone

  • Visual hierarchy does most of the navigation work; when it's right, users barely need to think

  • Copy is design, vague CTAs like "Book" created more confusion than any layout issue

  • Testing early, even informally, is always worth it

What I’d Do Differently

  • Test the information architecture with a dedicated card sort before committing to the navigation structure

  • Design the success states for each task earlier in the process, they were an afterthought and showed during testing

  • Explore the remote work use case more deeply; it felt underserved in the final design relative to how often it came up in interviews

Most proud of

Designing a product that genuinely addresses a real gap in the market, not just a portfolio exercise. The research consistently pointed to a user base that wants to travel alone but doesn't want to feel alone while doing it. RoamMate tries to hold both of those truths at once: giving users autonomy over their travel experience while lowering the barriers to genuine human connection. The 100% task completion rate was validating, but the moments during testing when users spontaneously said "oh, this makes sense" were the real win.

VIEW PROTOTYPE