WithDorm: Dormitory Solution for Linking Roommates

Abstract

Experiences in universities are important for emotional maturation and offer an opportunity to develop individual characteristics and skills needed for social life. There are diverse issues affecting the quality of dormitory life and roommate relationships, which can influence one's psychosocial development. In this paper, we propose With Dorm, a mobile application to help communication with roommates and tighten their connections, and thereby assisting the users' emotional health and psychosocial development. We analyzed dormitory roommate issues from a human-centered perspective and narrowed down to three design implications after dormitory life modeling. Furthermore, we implemented the design implications in a prototype and performed a usability test to evaluate and improve the design. The final design, WithDorm, is aware of dormitory-specific concerns, collects and adapts to users' lifestyles, and initiates human human interaction among roommates.