Case study · 2025–2026

Next Room
Designing for
the room next door

A hyperlocal student exchange system — built without marketplaces, payments, or complexity.

Every semester, usable items are discarded as students move out. Incoming students need exactly those items. The exchange already happens — informally, in hallways. This project gave it a home.

Product design UX research Systems thinking Charles University Prague

Role

Founder · Product Designer

Scope

End-to-end product design under legal & institutional constraints

Stack

Vanilla JS · Supabase · WEDOS

Status

Live pilot at 2 Charles University dormitories

01

A system
that already
exists in the wild

What was happening
📦
Perfectly usable items discarded every move-out season due to time pressure
🎒
Incoming students spending money on items available metres away
💬
Exchange already happening — informally, in WhatsApp groups and hallways
Why existing platforms failed
🌍
City-level scope (Facebook, Bazoš) — no dorm context, no proximity trust
🕐
Too slow for move-out timelines — students need same-day resolution
🔒
Low trust between strangers — no shared identity or social anchor
02

Four patterns
that changed
everything

01
Speed over price
Students consistently chose fast disposal over maximizing value. A kettle passed on today beats a kettle sold next week.
02
Trust is hyperlocal
Dorm affiliation mattered far more than profiles or ratings. "They live on floor 3" was enough social signal.
03
Proximity defines UX
The room mattered more than the platform. Physical closeness was itself the core affordance — not features.
04
Marketplaces don't fit
Students wanted simplicity, not negotiation mechanics. The exchange ritual is social — not commercial.
03

The reframe
that unlocked
the design

Instead of a platform for transactions, I designed a system for connections.

The reframe that drove every decision

Four core principles

1
Limit scope to the dorm — proximity is the trust layer, not ratings or reviews
2
Remove platform ownership of transactions entirely — connection is the product
3
Prioritize speed over completeness — a 2-minute listing beats a perfect one next week
4
Design for real behavior, not ideal behavior — students are offline-first by nature
04

The platform ends
at connection

1
Sign up with university email
Dorm affiliation established automatically — no profile-building required
2
Browse listings by dorm
Platform active →
3
Select item
One tap — photo, description, floor number
4
Contact the student
Direct connection — no platform intermediary or fee
5
Agree on handover offline
Students coordinate however works for them
6
Exchange item in person
Physical, face-to-face — the platform is done
Steps 2–4 are platform-supported. Steps 5–6 are intentionally offline. The system stops at connection, not transaction.
05

A facilitator,
not an intermediary

System model

Outgoing student
Has items to pass on
Next Room
Facilitates — does not mediate
Incoming student
Needs essentials now
Inside the platform
Listing storage & browse
University email verification
Direct contact interface
Deliberately excluded
Payment processing
Escrow or fee collection
Ratings & dispute handling
06

Decisions,
not limitations

Given up
Ratings & reviews
No social proof, no reputation layer
vs
Gained
Dramatically lower barrier to list
Listing takes under 2 minutes with zero history required
Given up
Platform-mediated transactions
No monetization hook, no data on completed exchanges
vs
Gained
Zero legal friction & institutional clearance
No payment processing = no payment regulation = fast dormitory approval
Given up
City-level network effects
Can't scale beyond the dorm context without losing core value
vs
Gained
Intrinsic dorm-level trust
A shared building is sufficient social signal — no profile needed
07

Adoption driven
by context,
not incentives

Time to first listing
2 min
From signup to a live item visible to the dorm
Trust mechanism
0
Additional profile steps required — email is the entire trust layer
Platform steps to connect
4
Sign up · browse · select · contact — then offline
Systems removed
4
Payments, escrow, ratings, and dispute resolution

The product required minimal onboarding because it mapped directly to an existing behavior. The value proposition was immediacy, not discovery.

08

What this
signals

Key insight
The best UX solution is often removing complexity, not adding features — especially when designing within real-world constraints. Strong product thinking starts with questioning the assumed solution, not optimizing it.
Demonstrated
Designing within real-world constraints — legal, institutional, and behavioral — without losing design ambition.
Demonstrated
Reframing problems beyond the obvious solution. The marketplace was the intuitive answer. Rejecting it was the design decision.
09

The 60-second
interview story

Structure

Four beats. Each one earns the next. Built for behavioral interview format.

Observation
"I worked on a project called Next Room, which started from observing a recurring problem in student dorms — every semester, items were being thrown away while incoming students needed exactly those items."
Complication
"The obvious solution was to build a marketplace. But through observation and conversations, I realized marketplace thinking imported the wrong constraints. The real drivers were speed, trust, and proximity — not pricing or transactions."
Insight
"So instead of designing a marketplace, I designed a system for connection. The key decision was removing platform involvement in transactions entirely — no payments, no escrow — and letting the physical building do the trust work."
Learning
"The main takeaway was that good UX often comes from removing assumptions rather than adding features — especially when you're operating within real institutional constraints."