Process

Over the course of the last 2 weeks, our team conducted interviews with a total of 16 participants, analyzed the data and created an affinity diagram. The process began with developing the interview questions after which we reached out to participants and conducted interviews.

The process ended with us creating the affinity diagram by sorting the data, grouping and regrouping it using sticky notes using Miro.

Workflow

13th September ‘22

Met in person to discuss milestone 2, holtzbalt and video lectures.

16th September ‘22

Met online to discuss the concept of contextual inquiry and the process we need to follow.

20th September ‘22

Met online to discuss the questions for interviews. We formulated well structured questions. Also finalized interviewee list and revised milestone 1.

24th -25th September ‘22

We individually conducted interviews of 4 participants each in their natural habitat and transcribed them.

26th -27th September ‘22

We met in-person to analyse the data collected from the interviews and drew meaningful insights from the content.

28th -29th September ‘22

Met in-person and worked on affinity notes and affinity diagram. Also restructured the website and made necessary changes.

30th September ‘22

Met online to review and fine tune elements and content of milestone 2.

Demographics

All of our interviews were conducted in person. Our demographics primarily consisted of international students and native American who are in their 2nd and 4th year undergrad students, 1st year and 2nd year master students who are also full time students at RIT and Syracuse university. Some of these students have recently moved into a new city.

Interview Questions

What are the difficulties that you face when you move to a student housing?
What kinds of furniture do you usually need when you move in?
Would you prefer buying the furniture or renting it?
Do you prefer new or second hand furniture?
What are your concerns while buying or renting used furniture?
Have you used any furniture thrifting apps before?
When you move out in the future, would you consider selling or renting your furniture out?
Do you think it’s important to talk to the seller, meet them in person to check the condition of the product?
Do you feel our application would be able to help you and what features would you expect from the application?

Affinity Diagram

Board can be accessed from

here

Interpretation

Through the interview process we got a lot of insights.

Majority of the participants said that a chat box feature in the application would be helpful to communicate with the seller.
We observed that participants are hesitant to buy 2nd hand bedding and couches, hence a quality check and assurance feature could be useful.
Participants prefer renting furniture if it is for a short duration of time, and buying if it is for a longer duration.
Having a feature that allows the users to compare prices easily is another feature that would be helpful to the participants.

Overall, it gave us a lot of information about our users and will help us in developing the application.