Refining Saciva’s interface for faster discovery & trusted student returns
Refining Saciva’s interface for faster discovery & trusted student returns
Duration
Duration
6 weeks
6 weeks
Role
Role
Research Planning, Usability Testing, Client Management & UX Design
Research Planning, Usability Testing, Client Management & UX Design
Team
Team
4 UX Designers, 1 Design Mentor
4 UX Designers, 1 Design Mentor
Summary
My team and I conducted usability tests to understand what problems and friction points users are facing while using the current Saciva app.
We uncovered insights which helped us redesign solutions that meet the client's business goals.
My team and I conducted usability tests to understand what problems and friction points users are facing while using the current Saciva app.
We uncovered insights which helped us redesign solutions that meet the client's business goals.
What is Saciva?
Saciva is a housing, roommate, and marketplace platform designed for students and young professionals, helping them find compatible roommates, nearby homes, and essential services based on location, lifestyle preferences, budget, and daily habits.
Saciva is a housing, roommate, and marketplace platform designed for students and young professionals, helping them find compatible roommates, nearby homes, and essential services based on location, lifestyle preferences, budget, and daily habits.
Saciva matches students with compatible homes and housemates based on preferences.
Saciva matches students with compatible homes and housemates based on preferences.
Client Goals
Saciva has previously conducted a Beta Test & a Survey with 250+ students from all over the country. We started with a client kickoff meeting to align on the app’s goals and target audience insights from the beta test.
Here are brief insights from the survey, find more info here:
76.4% of users strongly want an app to simplify housing searches and connect with reliable roommates; 17.2% would appreciate it.
Users need a network without fake accounts, spam, or irrelevant ads to get reliable information from real students.
Many users, especially girls, are concerned about security and privacy on social media groups, making a dedicated app more appealing.
Together, we aligned on our research/business goals aimed at determining…
How Saciva can enable target users to complete their highest-priority tasks efficiently without spending too much time on the app with high perceived satisfaction.
Whether Saciva encourages target users to return after first use and intentionally explore/adopt additional features.
Whether users are willing to use AI bots to make their search easier.
"It would be helpful to solve the chicken-and-egg problem: the app struggles to gain credibility because of low user numbers, but users are hesitant to join without that credibility."
- Founder, Saciva
To summarize, what's the goal?
User Goal
Business Goal
😊🔒
Users want to find rooms, reliable housemates & essentials with ease and in less time. Users want to access a secure network of real students, free from fake accounts, so they can trust the app and keep coming back.
User Goal
Business Goal
😊🔒
Users want to find rooms, reliable housemates & essentials with ease and in less time. Users want to access a secure network of real students, free from fake accounts, so they can trust the app and keep coming back.
User Research
Listening to user voices: We interviewed 8 real users.
We conducted usability testing with 6 students and 2 recent graduates, asking them to complete key tasks and answer targeted questions. The insights gathered provided strong evidence to support our design decisions and ensured alignment with client goals.
Summarizing the Findings
We conducted an Affinity Mapping to find important insights and patterns. Most of the issues reported by users were violating these 5 pillars - Smooth Onboarding, Navigation, Familiarity, Trust & Communication which helped us narrow down on our problems and recommendations. This chart breaks down how usability issues were distributed while performing tasks across the 8 users.
Key Insights
To strengthen Saciva’s credibility and boost engagement, through our research, we identified five key findings.
01
Users struggle to trust profiles and matching logic
02
Onboarding friction hindered smooth entry into the app
03
Confusing content discovery on Home and Marketplace increased navigation friction
04
Overloaded layouts with unclear hierarchy hurt clarity in Marketplace
05
Users noticed a mismatch between search filters' intent and behavior
Key Insights from the Post-Questionnaire
We asked users a set of questions to understand their overall perception of the Saciva experience, which led to the following insights.
01
Marketplace could drive repeat usage
4/8 users would primarily use the app for Marketplace, 4/8 for finding roommates, and 2/8 for finding rooms.
02
Credibility could impact repeat usage
When asked if users would continue using the app, 4/8 users were uncertain as the app doesn’t feel trustworthy.
03
Users find the app interesting visually
5/8 users love the look of the app as they prefer dark mode, whereas 1 user didn’t like it and prefers simpler visuals.
Finding 1
Problem 1
Recommendation 1
Problem #1
Users struggle to trust profiles and matching logic, which negatively impacts return rates.
Generic profile pictures raised concerns about legitimacy, while the opaque ‘Match Percentage’ felt arbitrary without clear criteria, leading users to distrust and ignore it. We are targeting users to come back to the app after their first use and continue using it, however, bad credibility hinders it.
Recommendation #1
Building trust through identity verification and transparent match scoring.
We added verification signals and clarified the matching logic to improve trust. A ‘Verified’ badge confirms profile authenticity, reducing scam concerns, while a ‘Match Breakdown’ explains shared traits, making the match percentage meaningful.
The touchpoint for verifying your profile would be communicated in Recommendation #3.
Finding 2
Problem 2
Recommendation 2
Problem #2
6/8 users faced some friction during onboarding, which blocked a smooth entry into the app and a clear understanding of its value.
While our goal is to create a seamless experience where users can easily find what they need, onboarding friction risks causing users to churn before they even enter the app. There are two key problems during onboarding that is preventing a smooth entry for users:
Recommendation #2
Simplify onboarding with clearer cues, familiar inputs, and flexible preferences.
We simplified the three onboarding screens by using familiar patterns and minimizing cognitive effort, making the flow easy to understand at a glance.
Finding 3
Problem 3
Recommendation 3
Problem #3
Users found it confusing to locate & interpret relevant content across the Home and Marketplace screens, causing friction in navigation throughout the app.
There are three persistent problems due to the inconsistent navigation structure:
Lack of a persistent bottom navigation and unlabeled ‘Coming Soon’ icons caused trial-and-error navigation and confusion.
Rooms icon resembled Home, and the central Home icon was unclear, leading to mis-taps and disorientation.
Marketplace was mistaken for listing items instead of My Sale, creating friction in the listing flow.
Recommendation #3
Redesigning the Home Screen & Nav Bar to enhance clarity & predictability reducing search time.
By eliminating the confusion on where to locate relevant features, it's not only reducing the total time taken for users to reach their goals but also improving long-term retention. Along with providing solutions for the previous 3 problems, we improved trust signals by introducing photo verification on the Home Screen making it more visible, and simplified the overall hierarchy.
Finding 4
Problem 4
Recommendation 4
Problem #4
Overloaded layouts & unclear hierarchy reduced clarity in Marketplace.
When browsing Marketplace, users found the category grid overwhelming and struggled to know where to start. Several encountered empty states when applying filters, which led them to assume the Marketplace lacked listings altogether. Product cards were also dense and hard to scan, yet still missing critical details. 5/8 users expected listings to open into a dedicated product page, similar to platforms like Facebook Marketplace or Amazon. The absence of detailed product pages caused confusion, reduced trust in listings, and, in some cases, led users to abandon items or question their legitimacy.
Recommendation #4
Reducing and reorganising the information to guide users better.
4/8 users mentioned they would continue using the app for Marketplace, suggesting that it could drive repeat usage.
Start Marketplace with “All Products” and support guided discovery through AI-powered personalized recommendations, and prompting users to save their searches and get notified so they can keep coming back to the app. Introducing product pages and wishlist features to support confident decision-making.
Finding 5
Problem 5
Recommendation 5
Problem #5
User noticed a mismatch between the expected and actual functionality of search filters.
Users were unclear about how filters worked and felt that both the Rooms and Housemates flows lacked sufficient filtering options, limiting their ability to find matches based on their preferences.
Recommendation #5
Adding an AI-Search Bar & a separate Filters Screen with more filtering options helps users find accurate results faster.
We introduced a clear, familiar entry point for filters, leading to a dedicated filters screen to reduce uncertainty. Users can now refine results using expanded filters with multi-select and clearly view or remove selected filters. An AI-powered search further personalizes results, helping users find relevant matches faster.
Rooms Screen
Housemates Screen
AI Feature Insights
During the post-questionnaire, we asked users in what ways an AI assistant can help them enhance their search. These are some key insights from users:
01
Efficiency & Convenience
Insight: Users see value in AI if it saves time (eg. Notifying about new listings, narrowing down options).
Solution: Include alerts and personalized filters driven by AI for new listings or matching amenities, reducing manual searching.
02
Conditional Use Based on Existing Filters
Insight: Many users would only use AI if filters or search functions are insufficient.
Solution: Integrate AI as an enhancement to existing filters, not a replacement (Like adding an AI-assisted search as shown in Finding 5)
03
Interest-Specific Matching
Insight: AI is appealing when it can match very specific interests (eg. Roommate preferences, Marketplace).
Solution: Build fine-grained preference matching where AI considers detailed constraints and scores options for users.
Next Steps
Is it even worth building these solutions?
01
We tested the final prototype with 4 users.
We noticed a reduction in time-to-completion od onboarding and other high priority tasks by 62%.
All 4 users understood how the compatibility percentage was derived.
02
Prioritize these solutions
We have a LOT of fixes, we need to start by prioritising these solutions based on severity, time estimates to build, and impact. Then, we can create an action plan for roll-out
03
Executing the AI-Feature
We need to ideate on what would be the best use of AI and prioritise those use cases. Then, we need to design mockups/prototypes to test with users to check if it's significantly improving the UX.
That's a wrap! Meet the team
Saniya, Harshita, Sriya & Tarun
How it came together…
Huge thanks to my wonderful team for making this project so enjoyable, and to Prof. Madhav Tankha for his thoughtful and thorough feedback throughout the process 🥰
Hop on to a bigger screen to unlock the complete case study and for the best experience! 🗝️ 🤩
Key Insights
To strengthen Saciva’s credibility and boost engagement, through our research, we identified five key findings.
01
Users struggle to trust profiles and matching logic
02
Onboarding friction hindered smooth entry into the app
03
Confusing content discovery on Home and Marketplace increased navigation friction
04
Overloaded layouts with unclear hierarchy hurt clarity in Listing Details and Marketplace
05
Users noticed a mismatch between search filters' intent and behavior
Key Insights
To strengthen Saciva’s credibility and boost engagement, through our research, we identified five key findings.
01
Users struggle to trust profiles and matching logic
02
Onboarding friction hindered smooth entry into the app
03
Confusing content discovery on Home and Marketplace increased navigation friction
04
Overloaded layouts with unclear hierarchy hurt clarity in Listing Details and Marketplace
05
Users noticed a mismatch between search filters' intent and behavior
© 2025 Sriya Benjaram. Last updated on 8th Feb 2026.
© 2025 Sriya Benjaram. Last updated on 8th Feb 2026.
© 2025 Sriya Benjaram. Last updated on 8th Feb 2026.