Roomers — Roommate-Finding App

Overview

Roomers makes one of the most stressful parts of moving to a new city — finding someone to live with — feel simple and safe. We designed and built a mobile experience where people, not just rooms, sit at the centre. Fast OTP onboarding gets users in quickly, a people-first feed surfaces verified profiles with workplace, age and distance, room listings carry rent and locality, and in-app chat lets potential flatmates talk before they ever commit to sharing a home.

The challenge

Finding a roommate normally means scattered WhatsApp groups, spammy classifieds and almost no way to judge whether a stranger is actually a good fit. It is a high-stakes, emotional decision made with terrible tools. Our challenge was to replace that chaos with a single, trustworthy flow — one that helps people weigh compatibility across work, lifestyle, budget and location before they take the leap of sharing their space.

Our approach

We began with research into how young professionals really search, mapping the journey from “I need a place” to “I’ve found the right person.” That work reframed the product around people rather than listings: profiles became the primary object, and location and lifestyle filters did the heavy lifting. We prototyped the core loops early — discover, shortlist, chat — and refined them until the path from opening the app to starting a conversation felt effortless.

Design

The interface leads with a frictionless OTP and social sign-in, then opens into a swipeable discovery feed of verified profiles showing workplace, age and distance at a glance. Detailed room cards present rent, locality and imagery, while a radar and map view lets users explore matches nearby in context. A calm blue palette, generous spacing and a clear typographic hierarchy keep dense information scannable, so a data-heavy screen still feels light and human.

Development

We built the front-end for both iOS and Android against the product APIs, implementing real-time chat, search and filtering, profile and room-listing management, and native map integration. Everything was constructed as a reusable component library, so the team could extend the app feature by feature without rework — keeping the experience consistent as the product grew from an MVP toward a full marketplace.

Process & delivery

The project moved from research and journey mapping into low-fidelity wireframes, then a polished visual system, and finally into build. We validated the discover, shortlist and chat loop with clickable prototypes before writing production code, so the riskiest interactions were proven early and engineering effort went into an experience we already knew worked rather than one we were hoping would.

Highlights

• OTP-based signup and social login
• People feed with verified profiles
• Room listings with rent & locality
• Radar and map-based discovery
• In-app chat and inbox
• Recent searches and smart filters

The outcome

The result is a single, trustworthy place to find both a room and the right person to share it with. By replacing scattered chats and guesswork with a guided, human experience, Roomers gives users the confidence to make one of their biggest everyday decisions — and gives the business a scalable, people-first product to grow.

Results & impact

Roomers replaced a fragmented, untrustworthy process with a single product people can rely on. Verified profiles and lifestyle-led discovery cut the guesswork that makes shared living risky, while in-app chat keeps the whole conversation in one safe place. For the business, the reusable component library and proven core flows created a foundation that scales into new cities and features without a costly rebuild.

Frequently asked questions

What did Creative Alive design and build for Roomers?

We delivered the full product — UX research, mobile UI design for iOS and Android, and front-end development — covering onboarding, a verified people feed, room listings, map-based discovery and in-app chat.

Is Roomers a UX/UI design project or a development project?

Both. Roomers was an end-to-end UX/UI design and mobile app development engagement, from user research and interface design through to building the app against its APIs.

Can Creative Alive build a roommate-finder or marketplace app like Roomers?

Yes. We design and develop location-based marketplace and social apps for iOS and Android, including profiles, search, chat and maps. Get in touch to discuss your idea.

Project type: UX/UI Design + Mobile App Development  •  Platform: iOS & Android