Rent Smart

The Problem

Many post-secondary students in Toronto are renters and have difficulty navigating the housing market due to renting inexperience, financial burdens/lack of income, and information overload.

So we asked...

How might we help post-secondary students feel safer and more confident when finding off-campus renting options in Toronto?

Solution

Checklists that identify key information and relevant resources to support renters as they progress from viewings to signing a rental agreements.

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Research Methods

Background research

To help us get a better understanding of our problem space and plan user interviews.

User interviews

To understand our target users' needs, challenges, and existing knowledge when renting in Toronto.

8 participants
~30 min, conducted in person and Zoom

Insights

Renting requires local knowledge

8/8 students shared a wide array of uncertainties surrounding rental processes and rules whether it was during their searches or while living in rented housing.

"I don't know what rent prices look like in a town, versus in a city"

Renting takes an emotional toll

6/8 students reported feeling stressed, desperation, and exhaustion.
1 participant (an international student) even shared that they began to doubt their choice to pursue their degree in Canada.

"I was desperate...My spot in residence got taken away in June, I got put on the waitlist but it wasn't going anywhere so suddenly it's July and I'm looking for a place to live in September"

Bad landlords

5/8 students shared stories about challenged they faced regarding their landlords from pests, maintenance, to rent increases. Experiencing issues with their landlords occurred regardless of whether renters knew their tenant rights or not.

"The landlord said it's our problem to fix... I looked into [the laws] and it says...that landlords are in charge of these types of pest control incidents"

Concerns about trust

5/8 students mentioned a need for trust, which applied to people, such as landlords or realtors, and information.

"When looking online, ...how do I actually know that this is trustworthy?"

Refining Our Problem Scope

How might we help post-secondary students who are first-time renters learn and apply knowledge of tenant rights and housing regulations, so they feel safe and confident when finding and living in off-campus housing in Toronto?

Why was this necessary?

Learning tenant rights and regulations may not be the best solution
We wanted to explore a broad variety of ideas before defining a solution, which could be inhibited if we assumed students need to learn tenant rights and housing regulations to feel safe and confident.
The challenges faced during housing searches vs. while living in rented housing are very different
We needed to narrow down our scope so that we could create a truly effective solution, rather than trying to help everyone. We decided to focus on the experience of finding housing since positive impacts could trickle down to when students are living in their rented housing.

Concept 1 - Knowledge Quiz

Through the quiz, students can test their knowledge about renting in Toronto to gauge their preparedness to take on a housing search and gain awareness on important renting rules and common practices.

Ideation

Concept 2 - Interactive Map

A map geared specifically to student renters highlighting key information such as safety, proximity to campuses, transit, student population, etc.

Concept 3 - Checklists

Checklists for various situations/stages of a housing search and supplemented with relevant resources.

Concept Testing

Informal Playback

To get feedback from experts in the UX industry

2 industry experts

User Testing

To evaluate concepts and determine which to move forward with

8 participants
Conducted in person

Feedback

Decision

Based on the feedback received, the checklists (concept 3) would be the best solution to help students feel safer and more confident during their housing searches. So, we iterated on the checklist concept to produce the final high fidelity design:

Next Steps

Areas for deeper research and further validation

Does it need to be a mobile app?

Existing platforms, like Google Sheets and Notion support the creation of checklists. So, would users prefer a dedicated app or existing productivity platforms? What limitations might these platforms have?

What checklists do students really want?

Exploratory research was limited by course constraints. Additional investigation into renters’ knowledge gaps is needed to better inform and prioritize the focus areas of our checklists.