Maple

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Inspiration

With a group member being an international student, he experienced firsthand the challenges of finding suitable housing and connecting with other students in a new country. The struggles of navigating a foreign housing market and the desire to build a supportive community inspired us all to create Maple, an app dedicated to helping international students find housing and connect with peers.

What it does

Maple is a comprehensive platform that serves the unique needs of international students. The app allows users to search for housing based on their preferences and budget, facilitating a smooth transition into a new country. Additionally, Maple provides a community feature that enables users to connect with other international students in their area. This fosters a sense of belonging and creates a supportive network for students far from home.

boldKey features include:bold

• Personalized onboarding to help acclimate new students to campus life in Canada
• In-app chat room & messaging to connect with fellow international students
• Housing search based on location, budget, and preferences.

How we built it

As we are designers and not coders, we built the entire prototype on Figma. We did some brief research, then created wireframes and got right to designing the high fidelity prototype!

Challenges we ran into

• Ensuring that the design resonated with users from various cultural backgrounds, requiring thoughtful consideration of symbols, colors, and overall aesthetics.
• Striking the right balance between an aesthetically pleasing design and a functional, easy-to-use interface.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Successful creation of a visually appealing and user-friendly prototype that effectively communicates the app's functionality.
• Positive feedback from user testing, indicating that the design resonates well with the target audience.
• Seamless collaboration within the team, leading to a cohesive and well-integrated prototype. And most of all having fun!

What we learned

Through the design process, we gained valuable insights, including:

• The importance of user-centered design and its impact on the overall user experience.
• The significance of cultural considerations when creating a product.

What's next for Maple

While the prototype is complete, the design journey for Maple continues. We had a blast building this project and we're proud of what we've completed. We want to take Maple further, as we think it is a product that has lots of potential.

Plans for the future:

• Conducting further usability testing to refine the design based on additional user insights.
• Collaborating with developers to transition from prototype to a fully functional app.

Maple's design is a crucial foundation, and we are excited about bringing it to life as a fully functional app to serve the international student community even better.

Built With

• figma