EuroFugees
EuroFugees is a web app that helps connect those refugees in need to local Europeans who are looking to rent out or help those refugees and welcome them into their homes. I was the Lead Designer for EuroFugees, overlooking the research, design, and testing stages for the web app
INTERACTION DESIGN, UX RESEARCH, VISUAL DESIGN
DECEMBER 2015 - FEBRUARY 2016
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR, HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT
The Problem
2015 had the world’s worst refugee crisis since WWII. There was a huge influx of refugees into Europe who will soon be ready to move out of camps into houses.
In 2015, 1.8 Million Refugees entered the EU, mainly though Greece. One of the largest challenges of getting assimilated is finding a place to live. This large influx of people places a strain on the local real estate markets, which makes finding a place to live very extensive and costly.
Research & Stakeholder Interviews
Along with a small focus group of Syrian Refugees in San Diego, we interviewed a number of people overseas in Europe as well. These interviews were very immersive given the distance, as we did a video call and the interviewees showed us around their refugee camps and their sub-par living conditions, only making the need for permanenet housing more urgent.
Sajeda: Has been in Europe for 4 months, still en route to her final destination at time of interview
Sajeda talked about the challenges of living in camps and temporary housing, and the need to find something more livable. At the time she was living in an old prison turned refugee camp.
Yazan: Has been in Europe for 2 months, and is now settled in Germany.
Yazan discussed the long process to finding permanent housing. With security and cost being the main issues. Refugees have to pay a realtor to help find housing. These realtors speak the native language and make the process smoother, though it can cost almost a month's rent.
Hadi (Far right): Syrian student who lives in Europe and spends his weekends helping transition refugees.
Hadi also mentioned the realtors, saying that some can also take advantage of refugees, sometimes stealing their money and not delivered promised services.
“Right when you arrive and do your paperwork at the refugee camp, there’s realtors offering their services, the few people we talked to charged between 800-1000 Euros to help us find an apartment nearby”
Goals for EuroFugees
When talking to refugees, we learned:
The realtors targeting refugees cost too much
The realtors posed a security risk to vulnerable refugees
Communication with homeowner is done through realtor, so there is a lack of transparency as well
Given the cost of a realtor, the business model for EuroFugees would be that EuroFugees would add a reasonable percentage of each sale as a transaction fee, one that would be competitive to the current alternatives for refugees at the time. By linking refugees directly with homeowners, we increase transparency between the parties as well, which is crucial for such a vulnerable population.
Prototyping
The main idea was to display important information about each listing on a card with a photo of the property. Important information included rent cost, location, and number of bedrooms/bathrooms. This goal was to only show the relevant and important information to the user first, as users judge quickly based on a few factors. I started with some rough sketches on paper, proceeded to some wireframes and app flows, and then moved on to high fidelity prototypes.
Early wireframe of listing page, used for initial usability testing.
Basic prototype made with HTML/CSS for the second round of testing and A/B testing as well.
Final listing page: After iteration and visual redesign
User Testing
Users generally enjoyed using the product, and we ran our paper sketch prototypes though testing as well, so we fixed obvious usability issues before building the functional prototype. We used a mix of moderated and unmoderated user testing with the same refugees I interviewed, and some UCSD students as well.
User Testing Takeaways:
Initial search experience was too limiting and asked too many questions.
Users want a general idea of housing market, then narrow search. So we added a refine feature.
Arabic speaking users also mentioned that lack of Arabic in the app could be troublesome for some users.
Added Arabic labels next to some english words to translate some the process
Refine feature added after initial user testing.
Testing Round 2: A/B Testing
We ran an A/B Test on the refine feature to see if it would indeed increase completion rates. We did usability tests again with primary stakeholders and UCSD students. We used Google Analytics for our tests. We had a 52% greater completion rate with the refine feature (Version B). We then ran a Chi Square test on the data in order to confirm that Version B's completion rates were statistically significant, which they turned out to be.
Production
Below is the final product that was presented at a Product Design Showcase in Southern California. We presented the app to a crowd of 1,000 people. Colleagues and judges had the opportunity to try out out app and talk to us about it. Out of 104 teams competing, our team won an award for Best Social Impact. Since then we've spent several months working with Refugees and European homeowners in further developing the product and testing the product in small villages in Germany.
