Hourworld is an international network of over 40,000 members of “neighbors helping neighbors”. All hours banked are considered equal, irrespective of the complexity of the task. One can pick from 360 communities around the globe and list what they have to offer and what they would like to receive in return. A time-credit earned for doing a particular task can be used to request a task from any member of the community.

Time Merits requires a log in for users to be able to use the time banking product. The UI is very intuitive. It is simple, so much so that it looks a little unsophisticated, as if it was the first project of an aspiring developer. The app calculates your balance in time instead of money. On the home page, you can view your balance, and you can withdraw or deposit from other users by scanning their QR code. While this ensures that the app documents the correct user transactions, this is an impediment for people who want to transfer time from a distance (it doesn’t let you upload screenshots of a QR code, either). One feature this app does not include is a way to find nearby users. You can only use this app with people you know personally, but if you wanted to look up a particular service to share or request in your area (or beyond), the app would not be able to perform this task.

Timekeeper Bank is an app particularly centered around using GPS so that users can browse other users based on proximity; then they can exchange services and requests locally. The app states: “offer your experience and knowledge to other members in the network”. On the “Market” page, a map is shown with nearby points showing where other members are, and there are three tabs: “People”, “Requests”, and “Services”. The app has notifications and reminders and the ability to schedule a trade with another member. Automatic transaction occurs. For the user profile, each person has a rating out of 5 stars that is shown. They advertise the app as more of a way to foster personal and community growth and be a part of something enriching.

Coining themselves as the “currency for humankind”, YING brands themselves as a way of fostering social interactions while boosting personal endeavors. In order to access the app, you need to become a member of a community within the YING platform. They emphasize how they provide a platform where people do not need cash to get what they need. They label themselves as a means of “expanding capitalism”, perhaps to avoid promoting communist or socialist beliefs that the time banking concept has roots in. Something that makes this unique and perhaps more developed than other time banking apps is that you must have a membership with payments that are monthly or annual.

Chris is a senior in his last semester at Carnegie Mellon. He’s a lover of football, theater, big dogs, and good food. As a senior, he eats out often due to his lack of a meal plan, and while he loves the food that Pittsburgh has to offer, he’s very aware of the hole it puts in his wallet. Chris is excited for his post-graduation plans to work as a consultant at McKinsey. Since his last semester is going to be laid back, he is interested in serving as a mentor to any underclassmen who need help or advice. Moreover, he has a lot of textbooks from his seven previous semesters at CMU, and is interested in giving them away.

End Goals: To have a rewarding last semester at CMU and feel a sense of giving back to the CMU community; to meet new friends and spend quality time with old friends before moving on to the next chapter of his life.

Life Goals: To have a stable career and, eventually, a wife and two kids somewhere in the suburbs.

Chris's Journey Map

Emily just started at Carnegie Mellon a few months ago. She’s an avid photographer and loves capturing and editing photographs in her free time. She plans to major in Computer Science but is currently having a hard time coping with those subjects as she didn’t study code in High School. There are many students in the class so she isn’t able to get enough individual attention from the professor either. She knows that there are probably many students on campus who would be willing to help her but she doesn’t know how to connect with them.

End Goals: To get through the semester with good grades and a sound understanding of her courses.

Life Goals: To start a digital design and branding agency of her own a few years after graduation.

Emily's Journey Map

As Student Body President, Jacob is still a pretty mellow person, but is vocal in what he feels passionate about. He is a Business Major with a minor in International Relations. On the weekend he likes to explore new restaurants in Pittsburgh, although it can be hard to find time. He fills up his schedules front to back, whether it be frequent lunch meetings, career fairs, or regular executive board duties. Lately, students have voiced to him that they don’t always know exactly where to go to when they want to get or give something, whether that be career advice, finding clubs, tutors, or textbooks. He hopes to find an innovative way to build bridges in the CMU community as well as help students have access to many tools, despite their financial abilities.

End Goals: Help create a more connected CMU student body, and make sure all of the students have access to resources they both need and want during their time there.

Life Goals: Live in a bigger city, while pursuing a career in the non-profit sector or within the government.

The “home screen” features a feed that displays recent transactions among people on campus. It also leads to a chat page where one can view conversations for open and closed transactions.

We created multiple iterations of search screens to direct search results from an overarching category towards a more specific search result.

We created profile views for both your “own” profile as well as viewing someone else’s.

We created a monthly and a weekly view of the calendar for the user to view their upcoming exchanges. A bell in the top right leads to new notifications.

The notifications, embedded in the calendar tab shows the user new requests, new messages, and any other activity that is important for them to take note of.

We made the search process clearer by adding specific categories and search options, as well as the ability to view “real” profiles in search results.

We detailed the profile by showing a short bio, recent transactions and a pop up menu for requesting the transaction.

Chat -   An automated message is sent to the user that you request a transaction from, after which they can accept or reject your request

Activity Feed -  The activity feed shows recent transactions on campus with the option to “like” a transaction to facilitate community engagement

In this next iteration, we increased the fidelity, made decisions with regards to color schemes, and further capitalized on user testing to make significant UX changes.

We rearranged the ordering of the navigation tabs so that the home page is now the search, and the user clicks the next tab in order to reach the feed. This helps prioritize the main goal of our app: to guide students’ search for resources. This solves an issue found in user testing: users took a long time to find that they should go to next tab in the navigation bar in order to search, since the start page was the feed.

Our aim was to display a fresh, youthful and approachable interface, while still having a sense of sophistication, and without being too bright and overpowering. From user testing, we found that the legibility of the screens worked well, as the screens were not overcrowded, so we aimed to keep this style and have a simple white background with hints of a brand color to highlight certain features. Our first thought was to search for something in the realm of blue or green, as these tend to exude the emotions we aim to convey. We wanted to use more muted values that were not too bright. Furthermore we did not want to choose a strong green, as that can symbolize money, which is not the focus of our app.

We decided on this blueish green color, and chose an orange with a similar value tone to use as the accent color. When implementing these into our app, the green color would display the assets that people have to offer, and the accent orange would display their needs.

We chose to have a more abstract representation of the logos rather than previously used images in order to maintain a cohesive UI and also showcase the main color.

We chose these broad categories with guidance from user interviews. We took into account the resources that students said they would likely search for.

Furthermore, the search bar still remains at the top for a direct search option (of a profile or resource), in case a user doesn’t know which category a resource belongs to.

The categories act as a template and guide so people know the scope of the app.

Something we debated was how to best guide the users into finding the specific resources they need. We toggle with the idea of having subset categories within each broad category, but one reason this couldn’t work is that many resources can belong to multiple categories, or none, etc.

As you type in the search bar, user-inputted tags appear, letting the user know what has already been put in the data-base

This helped with our problem of trying to help the user search “correctly” i.e. not type in 15-122 when perhaps another user called it something else.

We aimed to use colors to display assets and needs and avoid using too much text. We display the needs and skills color coordinated, and they appear bolded if it is matches your search. Further, we display profiles prioritized by a matching need to skill basis first, so that users can feel confident that they can provide value to the person they request. Finally, we display a large “view profile” CTA, as this leads the user to be able to eventually send a request and interact

Upon clicking "Request Exchange" on someone’s profile page, the user selects which assets they’d like to exchange, and how much of each. Upon requesting, an automated message is sent, in order to initiate the conversation to be had if the request is accepted.

Instead of having an in app calendar, we realized that most users put things in their own calendar.

We still felt it was necessary to have one tab dedicated to keeping track of your own activity and paired this with an in-app chat feature. New requests show up as messages in the Activity tab.

While deciding on a name required much brainstorming, we felt it was a necessary step in the process. With our app, we aim to create a space where a wide mix of resources in a community can be found in one place.

We wanted to find one word that captures this idea.

A forest is associated with growth and abundance, and and is home to a variety of unique resources all residing in one environment.

As CMU students, we witness daily how unique our peers are, and how each person has much to offer. In our app, everyone has something valuable to offer to this collaborative community. Furthermore, everyone is always looking for opportunities to expand their network and grow.

For the final prototype, the background is slightly more gray, a subtle difference that helps create a more polished look.
We removed drop shadows on the cards, adding thin strokes to make them pop instead. Further, we ermoved the words on the viewing full profile CTA button, finding that it is intuitive enough as is.

Additionally, note that the feed is now chronological, rather than having one section for updated needs/assets and another for activity between users on the app.

In response to testing feedback, we incrased the size of information displayed in the profile page. We also included scroll functionality for the profile page, which can be observed here.

Further, we made the request popup more compatible with iOS and removed the selecting hours function, as some assets are measured differently, and this detail can be discussed within the chat.