Dormly
Making student housing less overwhelming.
- Role
- Product concept & UX/UI design
- Project type
- MBA · Design Thinking for Innovation
- Scope
- Two-sided app · Prototype · Pitch
Act I
Understanding students
Starting with the people, then defining the real problem.
01How I approached it
Design thinking.
I built Dormly using the design thinking for innovation process I learned in my MBA and UX-UI Diploma: start with the people, define the real problem, then ideate, prototype and test before committing to anything.
- 01Empathize
- 02Define
- 03Ideate
- 04Prototype
- 05Test
02Empathize & define
Finding a place to live shouldn’t be the hardest part of university.
Students, and the families helping them, have to work out where it’s safe, what they can afford, who they’ll live with and how to actually close the deal, usually with very little to trust. Landlords, on the other side, need reliable tenants. So Dormly became a two-sided marketplace.
Students & families
Want a safe, affordable place near campus and people they can live with.
⇄
Landlords
Want verified, reliable tenants and less back-and-forth.
Act II
Designing the answer
One feature for every pain point, then a prototype to prove it.
03Ideate
Every pain point got its own answer.
Trust
Verified sign-in + student reviews
University or student-ID sign-in, and reviews that can’t be edited.
Money
Budget filters + in-app payments
Filter by what you can afford, pay in the app, split bills with roommates.
People
AI roommate matching
Match on lifestyle, agree on house rules, review each other both ways.
Logistics
Chat + visit scheduling
Talk to landlords and book visits without leaving the app.
Belonging
Nearby essentials + community
A map of what’s around, student events and on-call counselors.
04Prototype
Swipe, match, move in.
Prototype screens coming in from the live Vercel build.
94% match. My roommate standards are higher.
Act III
Taking it to the room
Testing the idea and pitching it live.
05Test & pitch
From prototype to pitch.
I turned Dormly into a clickable prototype and pitched it with a live demo. The full problem-to-solution story, with every screen, is in the presentation.