BOB:BUILT ON BASICS

Designing the end to end MVP for an enhanced co living experience.

Product design, Behavioral UX, AI companion, Brand, Prototyping · 2026

Introduction

What is BOB?

A mobile app for roommates. It runs the household as weekly sprints with points, task tracker, and an AI companion.

Project Role

Sole designer, end to end. Research, product, brand, prototypes, testing, business model.

Project Timeline

10 weeks for the MVP

TL-DR

Problem and Solution

Problem

Roommates share values but have no system to act on them

of 31,500 students reported frequent or occasional roommate conflict

of 22 surveyed students ranked cleanliness their top priority

found roommates with no structured tool

Existing apps stop at matching. Nothing supports the months after move in.

Two roommates, one holding a cat, talking.

Solution

Building a clear, scalable and focused MVP for roommates

4 decisions shaped it:

01Reduced blank slate anxiety with goal based sprints

02Made an AI coach to nudge users without being awkward

03Lowered setup friction and built value alignment into 4 guided steps

04Built a visible dashboard, with no overwhelm

05Merged task entry into one QuickLog flow

Result

3 Testing Rounds, scaling the SUS and NPS scores

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

What the MVP looked like

Understanding the users

3 distinct personas. One shared root cause: everyone agrees on what matters, but nobody has a way to act on it together.

A wall of illustrated roommates, each in their own colored tile.

A Structured Roommate

A Flexible Roommate

A Balanced Roommate

01

A Structured Roommate

Values punctuality, cleanliness, and clear boundaries. Highly introverted. Prefers written communication over confrontation.

How they think

Trait

02

A Flexible Roommate

Social, spontaneous. Values freedom and fun. Cleaning is not a priority.

How they think

Trait

03

A Balanced Roommate

Natural mediator. Values harmony above all, sometimes to a fault.

How they think

Trait

A Short Story Between Two Roommates

01/ 07

Meet Ryan. He texts Luke about the dishes…

Where was the gap?

Ryan leans on a car reading research while Luke watches from the window.

High Value Agreement

No Shared System

Chronic Friction

Where was the gap?

Select a marker to revisit a gap

01

High Value Agreement

Students walk in agreeing on what matters. Cleanliness, respect, fairness.

02

No Shared System

No mechanism exists to express, align, or maintain those values together.

03

Chronic Friction

Tension turns low grade and constant. It erodes trust and drains energy over time.

What I learned from the users

I had the data from interviews with 10+ off campus roommates, international students, and working professionals.

Scroll to load

Two people watch a monitor showing an analysis loader.

What I learned from the users

01

Named cleanliness the top concern

02

Friction was chronic, not explosive

03

Rules stayed implicit until something broke

04

Temporary fixes and ignorance showed up often

Problem Statement

How might we design structured systems for harmony by aligning values, habits, and communication within shared student living environments?

Flow #1

Designed a login and onboarding sequence that gets a new roommate from opening the app to a shared household in under two minutes, without ever feeling like a form.

01 /Returning users skip straight to a Google or Apple login and land on the dashboard.

02 /New users see a short animated carousel of three value proposition slides, pick a character, then move into a four step flow that surfaces what actually matters to them: cleanliness, quiet hours, fairness, and communication style.

03 /That value alignment step is the whole point. It replaces the silent guessing that usually happens between roommates in week one.

Sign in

Scroll, tap the phone, or use the arrow keys

Flow #2

Arriving at the Dashboard

The dashboard brings together everything a roommate needs in one glance: a hero banner with the current sprint name and date, a task snapshot of urgent items split by priority, avatars for every roommate on the sprint, a contribution bar showing points earned against target, and an activity feed of recent actions.

01 /The dashboard brings together everything a roommate needs in one glance: a hero banner with the current sprint name and date, a task snapshot of urgent items split by priority, avatars for every roommate on the sprint, a contribution bar showing points earned against target, and an activity feed of recent actions.

02 /Nobody has to dig through tabs to find out what is happening in the house today.

Dashboard · everything in one glance

Scroll, tap the dots on the phone, or use the arrow keys

Flow #3

Cards as Tasks

Every chore is a card. Priority sets the color and the points, tabs sort the week into To do, Active and Done, and adding a task updates the board and the dashboard together.

01 /The dashboard shows what is on today. The Menu opens a bottom sheet to jump anywhere, and Cards is one tap away.

02 /Cards turns the week into tasks. Every task is a colored card with its priority, the points on offer, an owner and a due date. Tabs split To do, Active and Done, and a person filter shows who is carrying what.

03 /Adding a task takes four choices: what, how urgent, who does it and when. Priority sets the points. Once it is added, the counts move and the dashboard shows it straight away.

1 of 6 · Home

Scroll, tap the phone, or use the arrow keys

Flow #4

Meet BOB, the AI Companion

BOB answers questions about the flat in plain language and moves you to the right screen. Ask what you owe, jump to Splits, nudge a roommate and settle up without hunting through menus.

01 /BOB lives on the dashboard as a mascot. One tap opens a chat that greets you and offers three shortcuts: Open splits, Current cards and Add a card. You can also just type a question, like how much you owe Bruno.

02 /BOB answers from the household data: eight open expenses and a net balance, with a pointer to where to act. The Open splits shortcut hands you to the Splits screen, where balances, who owes what, every expense and a spending breakdown sit one scroll apart.

03 /Settling up stays friendly. A drafted nudge reminds Bruno, then limits you to one reminder an hour. Confirm and settle closes every open expense, and BOB signs off with a wink.

1 of 6 · Home

Scroll, tap the phone, or use the arrow keys

Building BOB from scratch

INTRO PARAGRAPH PLACEHOLDER / Add the story behind BOB’s visual identity.

Outcome

What the users said

“BOB is intuitive, respectful, and human centered. This clearly will help me to bridge the communication gap between my roommates efficiently.”

Krithin Rajesh

Game Developer @ SCAD

“This makes household contributions visible, equitable, and something I actually want to maintain with my roommate.”

Difei Huang

UX Designer @ SCAD

“The sprint idea is genius. It’s like we are playing a game together instead of fighting about who didn’t wash the dishes.”

Cobalt Arnold

UX Designer @ SCAD

“I need this right now!”

Trevor

Graphic Designer @ SCAD

Outcome

What the UX committee said

Clark Delashmet
Prof. Chair of UXDG Department @ SCAD

System Usability Score (SUS)

0.0+14.5

Pre test
67.0
Post test
81.5

From marginal to strong through targeted changes between rounds.

System Usability Score (SUS)

0+50

Pre test
-10
Post test
40

From marginal to strong through targeted changes between rounds.

System Usability Score (SUS)

0.0+2.2

Pre test
2.1
Post test
4.3

From marginal to strong through targeted changes between rounds.

What this UX project taught me

Design the relationship, not just the screen

The problem sat between people, not in an interface.

Every change should move a number

Fixing navigation lifted its score from 2.8 to 3.8.

AI companion works best as a neutral third party

Hearing “take out the trash” from BOB reads as a nudge. Hearing it from your roommate reads as a complaint.

Next Actions

Google Calendar sync

Widget & notification controls

Testing with real households

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DreamingBig

WithBOB

Designing the end to end MVP for an enhanced co living experience.

Designing the end to end MVP for an enhanced co living experience.

Designing the end to end MVP for an enhanced co living experience.

What is BOB?

Project Role

Project Timeline

Problem and Solution

What the MVP looked like

Understanding the users

A Short Story Between Two Roommates

Where was the gap?

What I learned from the users

How might we design structured systems for harmony by aligning values, habits, and communication within shared student living environments?

Building BOB from scratch

What the users said

What the UX committee said

What this UX project taught me

Design the relationship, not just the screen

Every change should move a number

AI companion works best as a neutral third party

Next Actions

Let’s make time for a conversation.