Easy Nest
Exploring financial and cultural challenges faced by international students in the U.S. to develop support systems that enhance well-being and integration.
September 2024- December 2024
Product Designer / Academic Project
Product Design, Storytelling
PROBLEM
International students in the U.S. face financial and cultural challenges that impact their well-being and academic success.
How might we help and support them?
Despite contributing $34 Billion to the economy, international students struggle with uncertainty around finances, lack of community, part-time jobs, and adapting to cultural norms like the credit system.
What support systems can be put in place to improve their health and integration?
COMMUNITY
The Community Feed centralizes all student-driven conversations into a single, organized space. With clear category filters and structured content cards, students can quickly discover housing listings, ride sharing options, and peer questions.
Key details like rent, routes, availability, and timestamps are surfaced upfront, while contextual user information builds trust and relevance. The feed reduces friction from discovery to engagement.
POST A QUERY
This feature was designed to make it easy for students to ask questions, post housing availability, or offer rides from a single, streamlined entry point. As users type their query, the system intelligently surfaces similar questions from existing FAQs, helping them find answers instantly and avoid duplicate posts.
If the suggested results don’t fully address their need, users can still proceed to post; ensuring flexibility without blocking urgent or unique requests. By guiding users at the moment of intent, this flow keeps the community feed relevant, searchable, and focused on meaningful interactions.
HOUSING DETAILS
This experience was designed to help students confidently evaluate housing options without switching platforms or chasing missing information. Each listing presents key details; rent, utilities, availability, room type, amenities, and proximity to campus, in a clear, scannable layout that supports quick comparison and informed decision making.
To reduce friction from interest to action, students can initiate direct conversations with the poster from within the listing. This allows them to clarify details, understand roommate dynamics, and coordinate next steps in real time; turning housing discovery into a seamless, end-to-end experience.
IU DEALS
This feature was designed to help students easily discover and redeem exclusive, campus-relevant discounts in one place. Deals are organized by category and personalized based on student preferences, making it simple to browse offers that matter most, from food and dining to daily essentials.
With a seamless redemption flow, students can tap to redeem a deal and instantly generate a scannable barcode to use in-store. This removes ambiguity around eligibility and redemption, turning discounts into a frictionless, everyday benefit that directly supports student life.
FAQs
This section was designed to help students quickly find reliable answers to common questions without having to search across multiple platforms. Queries are organized into clear categories such as housing, transportation, finances, academics, and campus life, making information easy to browse and discover.
When an answer isn’t available, the experience guides students to post their question to the community, ensuring they’re never stuck at a dead end. By combining curated knowledge with community-driven support, the FAQs act as both a self-serve resource and a gateway to peer assistance.
MARKETPLACE
This feature was designed to help students easily buy and sell items within a trusted campus community. Listings highlight clear pricing, detailed descriptions, urgency, and pickup locations, allowing buyers to quickly assess relevance and availability. Sellers can manage active and draft listings in one place, while built-in messaging enables direct, frictionless communication between students, making everyday exchanges like furniture, electronics, and essentials simple, safe, and efficient.
REFLECTION
This project offered valuable insights into designing user centric solutions for international students transitioning to campus life. As an international student myself, I could understand the gravity of the situation. Through interviews and research, we developed a deeper understanding of their challenges, such as cultural adjustment, navigating a new environment, and accessing resources. Storyboarding and prototyping allowed us to visualize user journeys, refine key features, and address pain points effectively, such as integrating navigation with senior tips and combining housing with ride sharing. Testing highlighted the importance of accessibility, simplicity, and cultural sensitivity in fostering a sense of belonging. Overall, this project emphasized the value of empathy, iterative design, and creating meaningful, practical solutions tailored to user needs.
