Problem
When schedules change, one person quietly absorbs the extra work, and asking for help sounds like an accusation.
Case studyRoomie · iOS & AndroidKathmandu Valley
Fair isn't equal.
Designing a household app that makes fairness visible, so nobody has to be the one who asks.
Scroll to step inside
00 — The brief
Roommates keep things fair with memory, WhatsApp and a chart on the fridge. When schedules change, one person quietly takes on the extra work, and asking for help sounds like an accusation.
Solution
Roomie weights chores by effort, keeps heavy tasks off your busy days, turns missed chores into a pool anyone can claim, and sends the reminder itself.
Impact
A focused V1 of 27 hi-fi screens covering onboarding, chores, pantry and settings. Money and AI were cut to Phase 2 on purpose. Not yet tested: the plan is below.
Most households already have a system.
It's usually a WhatsApp group, a verbal agreement and whoever notices the overflowing bin first. Roomie is for people who share a flat: students, young professionals and friends splitting rent in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.
Business goal
Freemium. Core coordination (chores, grocery list, reminders) is free forever. A household subscription, Roomie Plus, unlocks smarter automation later. Growth comes through invitations: every household that signs up brings two or three more users.
Constraints
- Solo, two weeks. Research, strategy and UI were all mine.
- Local context. NPR; eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay; WhatsApp as the default channel for everything.
- No engineering partner. Every feature had to justify its build cost on paper first.
- Public evidence first. Research built on competitor products and real app-store reviews. Personas are hypotheses to test.
Chapter one
Empathize
How do households divide chores today, where does it break, and what would make people trust an app with something this personal?
Methods
6
competitor apps audited, across three rings
94K+
app-store ratings behind the four apps whose reviews I coded*
5
problem chains traced to a root cause with 5 Whys
* Ratings as recorded in my FigJam audit (Sweepy, Tody, Nipto, Settle Up). To be re-verified against the stores before publishing.
Competitive landscape
The strongest competitor wasn't an app.
Four direct competitors, two indirect. The third ring was the real one: the habits. A group chat costs nothing and everyone already uses it.
- Direct: Flatastic, Sweepy, Nipto, Tody
- Indirect: Splitwise, Settle Up
- Habits: WhatsApp, Google Keep, memory
What I found
- 01
The category already exists.
Flatastic already combines chores, shopping and expenses. "All-in-one" isn't a differentiator.
- 02
Apps track; they don't manage.
Most answer what, who, when. None answer why this is fair or what should change.
- 03
Fair isn't equal.
Taking out the trash takes two minutes. A bathroom deep-clean takes forty-five. Counting tasks treats them the same.
- 04
The burden is thinking, not doing.
Sweepy reviewers describe relief from not having to think about cleaning, not from cleaning less.
- 05
Households aren't static.
Tody reviewers ask for the plan to bend when they travel or get sick.
- 06
Nobody wants a game imposed on them.
Nipto reviewers want control over the rules.
- 07
Money needs receipts.
In Settle Up's reviews, trust comes from seeing the breakdown, not just the total.
Placeholder · verbatim review lines
2–3 short App Store review lines from Sweepy, Tody or Settle Up go here, attributed as "App Store review, Sweepy, 2026". Each under 20 words, verified against the store before publishing.
→ Decision
Don't position Roomie as chores + expenses + groceries. Position it as a neutral third party that carries the mental and social load.
Chapter two
Define
What is actually broken, and for whom?
Insight 01 · Illustrated
Two roommates.
One week.
Roommate A takes out the trash three times. Roommate B deep-cleans the bathroom once.
Counted by task,
A did three times more.
This is how most chore apps keep score: one task, one point.
Weighted by effort,
the scale flips.
3 × 2 min = 6 min, against 1 × 45 min. Counting tasks treats them the same.
Fair isn't equal.
So a fair system has to weigh tasks, not count them. That became the first rule of Roomie.
Your turn.
Click a chore to hand it to the other roommate, or drag it across. Then switch how fairness is measured.
A
B
Times from my research: trash ≈ 2 min, bathroom deep-clean ≈ 45 min.
Affinity mapping · five themes
Reviews, gaps and 5 Whys, clustered.
- A
The silent burden
One person notices everything and ends up doing it.
- B
Awkward money
Asking for Rs. 150 back costs more socially than it's worth.
- C
Grocery confusion
Nobody knows what's shared, what's personal, or what's already bought.
- D
Real life
Exams, late shifts and travel break fixed rotas.
- E
Mental load
Coordination lives in memory and a chat that scrolls away.
As-is chore flow
The memory & anxiety loop.
- Aman forgets the chore.
- Trash piles up.
- Sneha notices.
- Remind him?
- Avoid the drama.
- Clean it silently.
- Resentment builds, without a word said.
A grocery run runs the same loop
- Supplies run low
- Post in WhatsApp; nobody replies
- Buy everything yourself
- Calculate shares and chase them
- Everyone pays. Again next week.
Four insights
- 01
Fairness is effort, not count.
A fair system has to weigh tasks.
- 02
The real chore is remembering.
Planning, assigning and following up is invisible work.
- 03
A reminder from a friend reads as criticism.
The 5 Whys ended at the same place every time: there is no neutral intermediary. Hypothesis · not yet validated
- 04
Automation is trusted only when it's explainable.
"Why me, why this week" has to be answerable.
Proto-personas · assumptions to validate, not research findings
Persona A
Aarav, 27
Software engineer · Kathmandu
Unpredictable hours. He doesn't want to become "the default apartment manager".
Persona B
Prakash, 30
Banker · Pokhara
He notices every unfinished chore and ends up doing it himself rather than asking twice.
Problem statement
Roommates struggle to manage shared chores and groceries fairly because they rely on memory, scattered chats and manual coordination. As schedules change, nobody is clearly responsible for what, which creates mental load, awkward conversations and repeated friction.
How might we
help roommates share a home in a way that feels fair, effortless, and free from awkward conversations?
- …make chore distribution feel fair despite changing schedules?
- …reduce the mental load of remembering, coordinating and following up?
- …let the system do the reminding, so nobody has to?
Success criteria · targets, not results
<60s
to set up a new household
1
sentence to explain any assignment: "Heavy task moved off your busy Wednesday"
0
person-to-person reminders for tracked chores
0
test participants who describe a nudge as nagging or shaming
Chapter three
Ideate
Go wide, then find the one bet worth making.
Going wide · Crazy 8s against five HMW themes
About 25 ideas. Most didn't survive.
- Shared task pool
- Contribution rings
- Gamified leaderboard
- Pre-paid house wallet
- "Ours vs. Mine" lists
- Chore bounties
- 24-hour snooze
- Busy Mode
- In-app eSewa transfers
- WhatsApp bot
- The Rolling Tab
- Location-based reminders
- AI meal planner
V1Phase 2Killed 13 of ~25 ideas shown. Filtered with an impact/effort matrix, then RICE.
What I killed, and why
Gamified leaderboard
Competing for points turns housemates into rivals, against the "don't rank people" signal in the research.
Chore bounties
Rent discounts for doing someone's chore put a price on favours. That's exactly the tension I wanted to remove.
In-app eSewa transfers
A huge legal and engineering lift. Once people know what they owe, they can scan a QR in the wallet they already use.
AI meal planner
It solves a problem nobody had. The pain was coordination, not cooking.
The big bet
Smart Division.
One system that answers all four insights.
Effort weighting
Every chore is Light, Medium or Heavy. Rotation balances total effort, not task count.
LightMediumHeavy
Availability blocking
Everyone marks their busy days, and heavy tasks never land on them.
MTWTFSS
A shared pool
Missed chores move to a pool anyone can claim, so nobody has to chase anyone.
🪣Mop bathroom floorHeavyClaim
The app is the messenger
Nudges come from Roomie, in a tone each person chooses.
Roomie🌱 Gentle Nudge: The bathroom is waiting for a quick wipe down!
The hardest trade-off
RICE ranked expense tracking joint first. I moved it to Phase 2 anyway.
My first MVP had six features, including The Rolling Tab: a background ledger that settles small expenses monthly.
01
Money is already served.
Splitwise and eSewa are good enough. The chore half is where nothing works.
02
Money needs a high trust bar.
Financial features only earn trust with complete, explainable breakdowns. A half-built ledger costs more trust than it earns.
03
Rules before AI.
V1's rotation is rule-based: effort points + busy days. Rules are explainable by default, the trust foundation AI needs later.
V1 · ship
- Chore loop: effort points, busy days, shared pool
- Nudges & streaks
- "Ours vs. Mine" pantry
Phase 2 · later
- The Rolling Tab
- Settle-Up QR codes
- AI-based optimisation
- Receipt scanning
Chapter four
Prototype
What does fair look like on a screen?
4
tabs: Home, Chores, Pantry, Profile. With Expenses out, every tab earns its place.
38
screens in the inventory, mapped with the flow logic before drawing anything
27
hi-fi screens designed for the core paths
Low-fi first
Six flows in grey, including one that didn't make it.
Everything so far was thinking.
Here's the home it built.
Lights on.
27 hi-fi screens · 6 flows · 4 tabs
Key screens · insight → decision 01 / 08
60-second onboarding
Insight If an app needs constant input, it becomes another chore.
Five common chores are suggested and the basics come pre-selected; tap to keep or remove. Busy days on a single screen, a six-character code to invite. The progress bar keeps it honest.
Effort you can see
Insight Fair isn't equal.
Adding a chore asks for an effort level (Light, Medium or Heavy) before anything else. Every task card carries its chip, so the balance is visible at a glance.
Busy days
Insight Households aren't static.
One promise, in plain words: "We won't assign you heavy tasks on these days."
Missed by roommates → Claim
Insight Reminders between friends read as criticism.
A missed chore doesn't ping the person who missed it. It moves to a list anyone can claim. The list shows what's undone, not who dropped it.
Thanks, not rankings
Insight Nobody wants to be compared.
"Wonderful job. +1 day streak." Celebration moments thank people without comparing them. The sprout grows with the household's streak.
Pantry boundaries
Insight Grocery conflicts are about unspoken rules.
Shared, My items, Roommates. Personal items carry a rule: Do not touch or Ask first. A restock request becomes a claimable chore, so groceries plug into the chore system instead of building a second one.
Nudges people choose
Insight Nobody wants a game forced on them.
Each person picks a nudge style: Motivate me (streaks, emoji, warmth) or Just the facts (quiet, text only).
The app does the asking
Insight There is no neutral intermediary. So build one.
The lock screen does the reminding, in the voice of a flatmate who's on your side: "Gentle Nudge: The bathroom is waiting for a quick wipe down!"
Visual language
The product is about tension, so the interface is deliberately soft.
Display · Playfair Display
Aa
Hello, Rahul.
Text · Inter
A serif for warmth, a grotesque for clarity.
One pastel per roommate
👦Aman#FFEDD5
👧Priya#DBEAFE
🧑You#D1FAE5
Ownership reads without names.
Effort chips
LightMediumHeavy
The single most important component in the system.
Tone of voice is a UX decision
- 🌱 Gentle Nudge: The bathroom is waiting for a quick wipe down! Keep your 3-day streak alive.
- 🧻 House Update: Rahul just requested Paper Towels. Be a hero and tap to claim the restock!
- ✨ House Peace Secured: Aman just took out the trash. Go give them a high-five.
Every nudge written to sound like a flatmate who's on your side.
Final screens
27 screens. Six flows.
Onboarding 8 · Home 1 · Chore Hub 3 · Groceries 9 · Profile & Settings 5 · Lock screen 1
Chapter five
Test
How would I know I'm right?
Honest status Roomie hasn't been tested with users yet. This is the plan, not a result.
Round 1 · moderated usability test
5–6 people living with roommates in the Kathmandu Valley, ideally two full households. 30 minutes each on the Figma prototype.
TaskPass signal
Set up a new home and invite a roommateDone in under 60s without help
Add a heavy chore and mark your busy daysCan explain why the chore won't land on those days
Claim a chore from "Missed by roommates"Understands it without guidance; doesn't read it as blame
Request a pantry restockExpects it to appear as a chore
The riskiest assumption
Do streaks and effort debt feel motivating, or shaming?
The research warns against ranking people, but V1 uses streaks and gives heavier loads to people who miss tasks. I'd show both nudge styles and the effort-debt state and ask one question:
"How would you feel if your roommate saw this?"
Decision rule If more than 1 in 5 participants says "judged", streaks become opt-in and effort debt becomes private.
Round 2 · concierge pilot
Before building anything: run the Sunday chore plan by hand for two households over WhatsApp for two weeks. That tests whether a neutral planner actually reduces friction, the core bet, before the code does.
06 — Reflect
Fair isn't equal changed how I design.
My first instinct as a visual designer was to make chores look nice. The real work was defining what fair means and making it visible: effort chips, busy days, and a pool with no names attached.
Cutting my top-scoring feature was the most product-minded thing I did.
RICE said build expenses first. Context said the money half is already solved and needs a trust bar I couldn't reach in two weeks. The scores informed the decision; they didn't make it.
Real roommates, sooner.
Everything I know about Roomie comes from public reviews, competitor products and structured reasoning. It's real evidence, but it isn't the people who'll use the app. Next time I'd put the concept in front of real roommates before hi-fi, not after.
Inconsistencies I'd have caught sooner
- The profile screen shows a household rank, which cuts against the no-ranking principle.
- The roommates screen lists "Mumbai" in a Kathmandu product.
- The Home screen's nav bar highlights Chores instead of Home.
Next
- Run the test plan.
- Prototype the Sunday plan approval and the celebration moments in motion.
- Bring back the Rolling Tab in Phase 2, with every calculation explained line by line.