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Broomies - Household Task Management App

Broomies - Household Task Management App

Project overview

Role

Product Designer, Project Manager

Timeline

2 Days

Skills

Interface Design, Interaction Design, Usability Testing, User Research

Prototype

Prototype

Prototype

Broomies is a household task tracker for students in shared living to split tasks and hold each other accountable. It uses photo verification and accountability to increase incentive and accountability.

For this project, I took on a project management role that involved a combination of user research (interviews + survey), feature conceptualization and UX definition.

🏆 Awards

UXOpen Best Design Award

  • 70+ competitors

  • 2 developer offers

The Challenge

"Shared living can get messy"

One picture here is a from a dumpster and the other is from a student dorm. Can you guess which is which?

I lied …

They're both from a student dorm

Many students live in shared spaces with multiple roommates. From personal experience and from interviews with students (see later) we realized how challenging it can be to align on cleaning standards and schedules. This lack of coordination and accountability can lead to uncompleted chores, misunderstandings, and tension among roommates.

"I barely see my roommates…"

"We have very different schedules"

"I'd rather not confront them"

The Solution

By automating the division of tasks, nudging users to complete them through notifications and by keeping everyone accountable through a wager system, Broomies aims to address the key concerns our target audience faced (see later).

Automate division of tasks

Automate division of tasks


✅ Equal division of labour

✅ App notifications and reminders

✅ Ask to swap tasks


Tasks are divided automatically while allowing flexibility to swap tasks. The points of each task can also be manually edited to allow fair division.

Standards and Accountability

Standards and Accountability


✅ Defined standards of task completion and photo requirement

✅ Point system and putting some $$ on the line


Broomies also allows users to set the standard for each task and a confirmation system to check if the standard is met.

The wager system further motivates users to complete tasks and not lose money.

User Research - It wasn't just us

Interview

After running interviews with 5 students in shared living settings and a short survey to explore the space we realized…

White boards and calendars

Students who reported using a white board or a calendar admitted that the system fell through in a couple of weeks due to maintenance requirements and no accountability system.

Students who reported using a white board or a calendar admitted that the system fell through in a couple of weeks due to maintenance requirements and no accountability system.

Text message "manager"

Some students reported using text messaging to remind their roomates about chores.

This often led to stress on the "manager"

Some students reported using text messaging to remind their roomates about chores.

This often led to stress on the "manager"

Accept defeat

In some cases, poor management led to the point where one person just gave up and did everything.

Nobody deserves that :(

A competitive analysis of other household task-splitting apps revealed that many of them lack accountability and an incentive to actually complete tasks.

Visual Design Process

Visual Design Process

Style guide

To ensure consistency when working under the tigh deadline, we created a short style guide that met the WCAG colour contrast recommendations. Our mascot, Broomie (credit: Rayna) was born at this stage to add encouragement and add delight to the user experience.

Reflection

Broomies combines effective task management features with fun elements of the wager to boost accountability and reduce chances of conflict.

Despite its promising features, Broomies also has notable limitations:

The Bad Roommate Problem

Bad roommates exist. Having to live with one is truly unfortunate. While Broomies can help unorganized roommates coordinate chores, it doesn't solve the problem of bad actors.

The Bad Roommate Problem

Bad roommates exist. Having to live with one is truly unfortunate. While Broomies can help unorganized roommates coordinate chores, it doesn't solve the problem of bad actors.

Initial Coordination

Broomies require users to initially agree on wager amounts (if participating) and the tasks necessary to be completed every week. This can sometime be difficult in shared living as people may have varying expectations on involvement.

Initial Coordination

Broomies require users to initially agree on wager amounts (if participating) and the tasks necessary to be completed every week. This can sometime be difficult in shared living as people may have varying expectations on involvement.

Is an app really the solution?

While several people we pitched the app to said that they would be open to trying Broomies, they also expressed concerns regarding the nature of the problem. Roommates who were okay with spaces getting untidy are reported to be often uncooperative to systems put in place.

More testing is required to see if Broomies can actually alleviate the problem.

Is an app really the solution?

While several people we pitched the app to said that they would be open to trying Broomies, they also expressed concerns regarding the nature of the problem. Roommates who were okay with spaces getting untidy are reported to be often uncooperative to systems put in place.

More testing is required to see if Broomies can actually alleviate the problem.

Vibe Coding

Broomies is currently being developed into a prototype to test its efficacy.

Let's get connected!

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