Furniture rental for people who are only here for a while.
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A furniture rental and relocation app that lets international students and short-term tenants move in, and move out, without buying furniture.
- Date
- Spring 2025
- Course
- IXDS-720 Human-centered Interactive Design · Prof. Gustavo Delao
- Team
- Team Turquoise: Jiale Zhang, Riley Chen, Minwei Wu
- Category
- UX/UI Design
My role
Interactive designer on a three-person team, from needfinding interviews to the final app prototype.
- Needfinding & interviews
- Empathy maps & personas
- Ideation (SCAMPER)
- Prototyping
The problem
Starting over in a new city means furnishing from scratch.
Moving across borders, international students arrive in unfamiliar cities and empty apartments. They need a place that feels like home without the burden of buying, transporting, and later discarding furniture.
How might wehelp first-year graduate international students living off campus furnish, and move out of, their apartments quickly without spending too much time or money?
Research
Listening to people mid-move.
15 participants aged 20–30 — interviews on daily life, especially work, food and life transitions, each coded into needs.
Empathy maps surfaced motivations, environment and pain points.
A second round focused on short-term living and furniture rental.
Behavioural variables mapped per participant, then distilled into patterns and design goals.
Personas built from the patterns, each with context, goals, interests and attitudes.
02 What we learned
Who we were designing for.
Insight 01 / 04Insight 02 / 04Insight 03 / 04Insight 04 / 04
Most international students don’t have a car, and they prefer to do everything on their phones.
Their furniture needs are diverse and long-term, and they want urgent delivery with some flexibility.
They value recyclability, but don’t require it.
Newly arrived, they feel anxious about furnishing and moving out, and turn to social media for help.
Ideation
Seven lenses on one service.
After brainstorming, we pushed ideas through SCAMPER. Tap a letter.
Substitute
- Real-life furniture photos and AR models instead of static displays.
- Partner with logistics companies to cut transport costs.
Combine
- Bundle furniture rental with transport to ease moving.
- One-stop move-in and move-out for a seamless, closed loop.
Adapt
- Airbnb-style room recommendations: packages by room type and household size.
- Feather’s “the longer the lease, the lower the rent”.
- A takeaway-style tracker: order → delivery → installation.
Modify
- Drag a timeline to set the rental period.
- Tap an image to view furniture in AR, 360°.
- A warm colour palette for visual comfort.
Put to other use
- Extend to university orientation, helping first-years decorate their dorms.
Eliminate
- Automatic cost calculation, shown visually.
- One-click sign-up.
- Only show furniture available in the delivery area.
Rearrange
- Put furniture recommendations before address verification, so browsing comes first.
Key features
Move in. Move on. Effortlessly.
04 Key features
Flexible set rentalSingle item customizationCustomize & view in AREasy rental management
01 · Sets02 · Single item03 · AR view04 · My rentals
Rent a whole room as a set for the best price, then edit what’s in it to match your taste.
Rich previews of colour, size and rental length make choosing a single piece quick and easy.
Place furniture in your room with AR before you rent, so you know exactly how it fits.
Payments, addresses and rentals live in one profile. Renew a lease or schedule a return in one tap.
Prototype
Rent a room, end to end.
Everything that looks tappable works: browse, try a chair in your room, check out and manage the rental. Notes follow along.
The app, end to end
From browsing to checkout.
DRAG TO EXPLORE · CLICK TO ENLARGE
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