Abstract:
For our capstone project, we plan to design and implement a housing website for college students in Orono, Maine. We want the website to be visually appealing and have simple features that will allow the user to find an apartment to lease, sublease an apartment, see reviews on properties and get in touch with landlords within minutes. This capstone project will succeed because there is currently no website in Orono that is efficiently or effectively designed with the features that meet the demands for students. Livin’ Easy will be a convenient way for students to search for off-campus housing in Orono. Students will appreciate how much time and effort they will save by using this website.
Project Description:
Objectives
The main objective of this project is to assist existing or upcoming college students with locating off-campus housing around the campus area. Specifically, the website will target freshmen and sophomore students who are looking to move off-campus at the beginning of the semester. The development for this project began when we realized how difficult it is for students to find available housing in Orono, Maine. The University of Maine community lacks a well-designed housing website which combines renting, subleasing, reviews and access to landlords into one site. Copious amounts of research and planning went into the foundation of this project and we have set our goals high on what we wish to accomplish in the end.
Importance and Context:
Throughout our college experience, we have had countless issues when searching for off-campus housing within an affordable budget. The issues we have experienced deal with the fact that there are no efficient housing websites for students in Orono. The housing websites that do exist are poorly designed, do not update themselves and are not effective in assisting students locate housing. After years of dealing with these issues and talking with dozens of students, we have found that everyone agrees students lack a single platform or website that would allow them to search a single database that contains all of the listings in our local area. There are currently a few of platforms designed to find housing including apartmentfinder.com, maine.craigslist.org and a FirstClass conference folder that UMaine students can access called The Roommates_And_Apts folder. However, this folde is not frequently updated, it’s set-up is unorganized and it is difficult to locate the webpage on FirstClass. The folder also does not include pictures or reviews of properties, the option to rent or sublease and it also lacks a way for students to get in touch with potential landlords. One of the biggest issues we found with the current housing websites/platforms is that they are not updated – leaving students believing that a property is available when it has already been leased. To solve this problem, we would ask landlords to flag a property as “leased” or “rented” on the site. Doing so would benefit landlords in the aspect that they won’t receive requests for properties that are unavailable, as well benefit students who inquire about a property only to find that it has already been leased. We would ask potential landlords to provide content (listings, ratings or flags) at least every 3 months so our website can stay active and updated. We intend to get all of the realty companies in the area that rent to UMaine students to allow us to post their listings on our new site, making it easier to present all rental options on one platform, as well as offering another marketing channel for realtors.
We also intend to make social media a large part of this project. Social media is the most effective and efficient way to gather student interest in our site. We have already created a Facebook page for the Livin’ Easy site and we plan to take this link and forward it to each “UMaine class of __” Facebook group. Creating a Facebook page for our site will allow students, and renters to begin talking online allowing us to connect with people. Our first small Facebook campaign will be asking for student feedback by issuing open ended questions regarding what factors have been the biggest issue on sites they have used in the past when looking for a lease or a sublet. Another aspect of Facebook we plan to use is creating polls and surveys. As we are implementing what we believe is an efficient way to make this site, creating polls or surveys will allow us to hone in on specific problems students have had in the past. We plan to continuously push these surveys and polls because the more information we can obtain the more efficient our product can be.
Another problem we found with current housing websites is that they don’t have adequate search criteria. For example, the only search criteria that Apartment Finder offers when you first enter the site is to enter the location you desire. It doesn’t ask what type of housing, the size of housing you need or the duration you are planning to rent. Our site would benefit students by allowing them to search exactly what they’re looking for all on the first page of the site. The first page would display search criteria and would let the student select all their options neccessary for an appropriate rental.
Another problem we found with current housing websites is the lack of visuals and poor web design. The Roommates_And_Apts group conference on FirstClass is confusing to read and is unorganized. It lacks pictures and has poorly designed flow and interactivity. There is also no search criteria involved with the FirstClass folder; it is strictly random posts from students who are either looking for roommates, an apartment or are looking to sublease. Livin’ Easy would fix this problem by being visually appealing and easy to navigate. After the student enters their search criteria, the site would then bring them to the next page. That page would show a geographical map of Orono at the top of the page with a star or other symbol representing the available listings in Orono, giving the user a different perspective to see rental properties. From personal experience, it is definitely more appealing to see a visual representation of all rental postings because students do not always know where the available places to rent in Orono are located.
On this second page the listing will be shown in a more minimal way with a brief description including information such as the address, number of bedrooms/baths, and the monthly or yearly rental cost. Upon clicking on an individual listing, the user would be brought to a third page. The third page would be the informative page that gives the users all the information they need to know about the address they are viewing, including number of bedrooms, heat, washer and dryer hookups, parking, monthly cost, landlord or company and any other information. If the listing requires the user to fill out an application or contact a landlord, the needed information will be provided.
We’ve spent a lot of time researching and analyzing our competitors and none of the housing platforms or websites on the market have all the features students need. Summer internships in New York City have helped prepare us for this project. Evan worked as a graphic designer at a food franchising company in Midtown and I worked at a digital marketing firm in lower Manhattan. From my internship experience, I learned valuable marketing and communications skills and I was able to learn how advertising works and why digital advertising and marketing is becoming so important. We have both taken communications classes, art classes and graphic design classes that help us with this project. In addition, Evan and I have both agreed to take a programming class in order to acquire the necessary programming skills to complete this project. With our skills as New Media students we are prepared and dedicated to create an active housing website that will benefit students and will change the future of student housing in the Orono area.
Accomplishment of Objectives:
Livin’ Easy will be completed over the course of an academic year. There are four overall components of development, each comprised of the following sub-components. Design, Construction, Implementation and Advertising. Design consists of sketching layouts for the website, researching competitors, speaking with local realtors and student outreach. Design is now underway and is scheduled to be completed at the end of October. Construction consists of programming and creating the actual website. Construction is extremely crucial to our project because this phase will determine how our website looks and functions. Construction includes design work, programming and some debugging if necessary and is scheduled to take place from November until early March.
The next phase is Implementation, the core of our project, which is scheduled to take place from the beginning of March until the beginning of April. During this period of time, an alpha version of Livin’ Easy will be released to freshmen/sophomore students so they can test our website. After they explore and test our website we’ll get feedback and make any changes or revisions needed. The final phase will be the Advertising phase, where we will showcase and promote our project to various students on and off-campus. Advertising consists of setting up a kiosk in the Union with posters, pictures and a prototype of our project. This advertising phase is crucial to our project because we need to get the word out early in order to gather student interest and excitement. Livin’ Easy will be ready for a public release by mid April 2015.
Budget & Budget Justification:
Once the design phase, consisting of research and layout, is complete the next step is actually bringing this website to life. This final construction phase is where we will need to enlist the help of a web coder to transform this idea into a reality. While we are well-versed in the area of graphics and web design, we lack the technical expertise to code the working aspects of the site. In order to enhance our own knowledge, we will be taking a separate programming class that will give us familiarity while working on this project. However, our own knowledge is no substitute for the level of professionalism an experienced web coder could bring to our project. We are requesting a $1000 budget for this project so that we are able to hire a professional coder, which is where receiving this grant would ensure our project’s success. We need help funding our project because we are solving a common issue that all students face when they are looking into acquiring off-campus housing. This housing website will drastically change the future of the college student’s house-hunt.