This post was updated May 11 at 8:46 p.m.

Newly admitted students will be ready to Roomble with a student-created roommate finder.

Roomble launched in April with advertisements on Reddit and Facebook, said founder Aidan Wittenberg, a third-year computer science student. While navigating through Facebook and Instagram in search of his ideal first-year roommate, he said he noticed an unmet demand for a virtual space specifically designed to aid UCLA students through this process.

“I was shocked there wasn’t another solution better than what I was doing, which was cold (direct messaging) people on different platforms, hoping for a response,” Wittenberg said. “I was surprised to find that people were leaving up to chance who they live with for almost a year.”

Wittenberg said he and fellow web developers, Jacob Sandler and Satva Shah, considered their own and different students’ adverse experiences living with people they were paired with by UCLA Housing’s portal, which matches roommates based on living preferences. As a result, they created the more nuanced Roomble to ultimately help fellow students find a compatible roommate by filtering and presenting content in a digestible way, Wittenberg said.

Originally a class project, Roomble is a survey consisting of lifestyle questions – each followed by a scale of how important it is that a roommate shares a certain trait, Wittenberg said. Based on these answers, he said Roomble’s filtering algorithm identifies which profiles share the most similarities. While Roomble is built to present users with people they can live with, Wittenberg said it is up to students to decide who they ultimately want to match with.

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Sandler, a third-year computer science student and Roomble’s programming and product development manager, said a student’s college experience is often shaped by the friendships they make as a freshman. Roomble provides a platform for students to meet people they can live and bond with, Sandler said, helping them establish a social network early on.

“We wanted to make something that allowed people to find roommates in a stress-free environment … and kick-start that social aspect of the college experience,” Sandler said.

Since Roomble’s launch, Shah, a third-year computer science and economics student and the business and operations manager, said the web developers have received encouraging feedback and are beginning to see an upward trend of user engagement. One reason for their early success, he said, is the accessibility a website provides as opposed to an app. With just a search, Shah said Roomble renders onto a mobile device or computer, creating a user-friendly experience and reaching a greater audience.

Another valuable facet of Roomble is providing a fundamental layer of security, Wittenberg said. To sign up, he said users are required to register under a UCLA email and complete steps for verification, guaranteeing that users are presented with other students. Wittenberg said this is one way Roomble distinguishes itself from other roommate search platforms such as third-party-run Facebook groups, which have no way of securing user access.

In terms of programming, Sandler said he is the technical brains of the operation and deals mostly with back-end development, providing the infrastructure for users to access interactive content on the front end. Sandler said he is also responsible for managing data and endpoints, web transactions and swiping. Although Roomble is in its beginning stages, Sandler plans to program a feature that streamlines roommate groups of three in the future, he said.

[Related: Diversifying her portfolio, student Stacy Kim fuses content creation and business]

In addition, Sandler said users can expect an email surveying whether any matches became their roommates. He said this information will be used as a metric of the website’s success and to identify any areas of improvement. Wittenberg said the ultimate goal is to continue the development of Roomble and make it the quintessential platform for finding a roommate at UCLA.

“Hopefully we alleviate the stress of this transition for some of these new students,” Wittenberg said. “(It’s) a very basic product, but one that we felt confident people would use and that could help people, because at the end of the day, that’s kind of why we’re here.”