MADDIE PHILHOWER
  • WORK

UX/UI: App for Chronic Conditions
UX/UI: CMU Housing Website

Read My Mind: Interactive Exhibition
Character: Exhibition Branding 
PackNWood: Digital Content Design
Design Hero: Print & Motion
Job Clarendon: Print & Motion
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©2025 

CMUHOUSING.COM

2024
Role: UX Research, UX Design, UI Design
Tools: Figma, Figjam, Illustrator
A website that improves and simplifies the process of finding a Carnegie Mellon University dorm, enables students to search based on preferences and dorm accommodations.


Check us out: cmuhousing.com

OVERVIEW:

CMUhousing.com aims to improve student life through the undergraduate dorm selection process, providing incoming freshman, transfer students, and exchange students with easily accessible information and student opinions.
ROLE: 
Group project focused on a solving a campus problem. My contributions included:
  • Research lead: wrote interview guide, coordinated recruiting, led interviews with participants, led debriefs and managed documentation of findings

  • Collaborated with fellow designer and computer science major to map out the website architecture and requirements. All final design decisions were collaborative

  • Presented at critiques with stakeholders and captured feedback for iterations
THE CHALLENGE:
Choosing campus housing at CMU can be overwhelming. Students often struggle to find dorms that meet their needs and accomodations, and the existing housing website makes it difficult to access clear, up to date information or compare options.


UX RESEARCH FINDINGS:
We learned about student strategies for evaluating dorm options and then built our solution around meeting the needs underlying their strategies. Key findings included:

  • Students opt out of CMU-provided dorm information because it’s stale and incomplete; they seek out dorm ranking videos posted online by other students

  • They reach out to students currently living in a prospective dorm to gather recommendations and personal experience

  • They create a ranked list of priorities for their living experience and compared dorm amenities to the list in order to eliminate dorms

USER PAIN POINTS:

DESIGN OBJECTIVES:



DESIGN FEATURES:
Survey for personalized housing recommendations.

  • Users can take a short survey about their behaviors, preferences and needs to help filter and prioritize dorm options.

  • The site suggests housing options that best match user inputs.




Explore the best housing for you.

  • The “All Building Options” page presents users with personalized recommendations based on the initial survey, with Wild Card suggestions highlighting housing that aligns with unique goals or aspects of a student’s identity. 

  • Users can also filter by amenities, atmosphere, and distance to refine their search and find their ideal match.
Compare building options.

  • The “Building Comparison” page lets users view amenities and room information for two or more dorms side by side. 

  • Integrated student reviews share past residents’ experiences, helping users make more informed housing decisions.

  • The “Building Information” page lets users explore a dorm in detail with student reviews, a photo gallery, floor plans, video walkthroughs, and more.



Review dorms to support other CMU students.
        
  • The “Write a Review” page lets past residents share their experiences of amenities, room quality, and atmosphere of specific dorms so that future students can make more informed housing decisions.





USABILITY TESTING:
 I led usability testing sessions on our early draft design to see how it was landing with our target audience. I observed students struggle to absorb all the details we provided. It was information overload so we knew we needed to prioritize and scale back content.


We studied apps like Airbnb to understand more strategies for organizing complex content. Based on the usability testing and analogous app reviews, we made the following decisions:

  • Look for opportunities to share information through visuals rather than only text

  • Break up information into scrollable sections

  • Offer “view more” to give users control over whether they see all available information 


I analyzed Airbnb for inspiration on how to manage all the housing information we have in our solution.


VISUAL DESIGN: 
We aimed for a visual system that feels uplifting, fun, and informative. We created a cohesive set of icons that highlight key aspects of the dorm selection process while remaining approachable.

To distinguish our site from CMU’s official housing page, which uses red and blue, we chose a vibrant orange and turquoise palette to stay professional yet energizing. We also designed a consistent system of rating sliders and buttons to make comparisons intuitive and interactions easy.