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Simplify shared living, one task at a time
Client
WG Buddy
Year
2024–2025
WG Buddy is a shared living management app built for my M.Sc. in Usability Engineering at Hochschule Rhine Waal, designed with two teammates to solve the everyday friction of German WG (Wohngemeinschaft) life i.e splitting expenses, coordinating chores, and planning meals across a shared household.
We ran structured interviews and built personas across nine shared-living profiles, then moved through paper prototypes, tree testing, and high-fidelity prototypes validated with Maze across 10 participants. The result is an all-in-one platform for expense splitting, chore rotation, and collaborative grocery and meal planning built to replace the patchwork of apps (Splitwise, WhatsApp, sticky notes) most shared households cobble together.
Scope of Work
01
PROJECT BRIEF
Role: UX Designer
Responsibilities:
Wireframing
Documentation
Information Architecture
Research
Design Systems
Prototyping
Timeline: 4 Months
Project type: HSRW Project
Students and newcomers to Germany often struggle to navigate the WG system, and with no single service built for their needs, they end up cobbling together a patchwork of outdated apps just to get by.
02
THE PROBLEM
Managing a WG can be stressful when people from different backgrounds suddenly have to share one space
Germany's Wohngemeinschaft (WG) system means several people sharing a home. But when everyone comes from a different country and a different standard of living, small daily habits — who does the dishes, who restocks the toilet paper quickly turn into friction, and disputes are common in these multicultural households.
03
THE RESEARCH
Before jumping into design, we needed to understand the problems expats commonly face living in a WG system, and how usable their current solutions actually were
Given our timeline, we focused our research on a few key areas i.e market research, user interviews, persona development, and surveys.
Competitive Market Analysis
We found plenty of apps solving individual problems, but none built specifically for managing a WG communication was scattered across tools that not every household member was comfortable using.
User Survey Insights
An initial survey of university students revealed that many were juggling multiple apps just to manage single tasks, leaving them overwhelmed, frustrated, and stretched thin alongside studying and work.
Persona Study Insights
We grouped personas by shared problems to surface the pain points that mattered most to students , from keeping up with cleaning schedules to managing shared finances and used these to prioritize what the solution needed to solve.
04
THE SOLUTION
A simplified, easily accessible way to manage the chaos of a WG
Based on what we learned, it was clear the household needed one tool to manage expenses, inventory, and schedules. We brainstormed solutions and landed on an app that covers the essentials every household member actually needs.
Ideation
We grouped the pain points into categories to make sure the solution addressed all of them: “Groceries & Food,” “Task Management,” and “Finances.” These three surfaced as the most relevant, based on participants' needs and the workarounds they were already using.
Low Fidelity to High Fidelity
Once the flow was finalized, the fun part began designing. We sketched out screen layouts and tested them with classmates to sharpen their intuitiveness and clarity, then refined them into mid-fidelity and eventually high-fidelity screens. To help users know which category they're in at a glance, we gave each of the three sections its own color scheme, informed by trends we saw across multiple platforms.
Testing and Feedback
With the high-fidelity screens finalized, it was time to test with real users. This surfaced areas where the UX writing or app flow caused friction, and confirmed that people found the features relatable and genuinely useful. We ran these usability tests on Maze with university students.
