NEEDLE - App for Finding Your College Roommate

The transition to college represents a significant period of change for incoming freshmen, encompassing new academic, social, and personal challenges. One of the most influential aspects of this transition is the roommate relationship, which can directly impact a student’s academic performance, mental health, and overall well-being. Traditional methods of roommate selection, such as institutional housing portals or informal social media groups, often fail to provide students with meaningful insight into compatibility.

These approaches tend to result in superficial connections and, in many cases, mismatched living arrangements. To address this issue, our team developed NEEDLE, a mobile application designed to streamline and improve the freshman roommate selection process. By integrating personalized surveys, compatibility-based matching, and conversation prompts within a modern and accessible interface, NEEDLE encourages deeper connections between students before move-in. This project aims to demonstrate how thoughtful design can create a more reliable, user-centered solution to roommate matching, ultimately fostering healthier living environments and more positive college experiences.