Problem Statement:

People who wish to pick up a new skill don’t have the time and money to dedicate to learn; people who identify themselves as experts in certain areas don’t have the chance to teach and share.

Solution Statement:

A platform that enables users to conveniently learn skills or teach others through the unique system of exchanging “time”, as well as encouraging users to step out to communicate with others.

Overview

“Time and money” is where the most dominant varies from engaging in the process of learning a new skill. This was even though the majority of people served had a clear focus on the area they wished to engage in. We challenged ourselves to look at these varies in different lenses. One where they became the asset and not the aspect of life that held users back. We turned time into the currency that would enable users to participate in Xpand. Participants would trade their time in exchange for engaging in a learning experience while the contributors would gain time tokens.

This project was followed by:

• Identifying the design Intent

• Secondary Research

• Primary Research

• Personas

• Ideal user experience

• The Concept

• Vision Video

Design Intent Statement

To engineer social capital and engage all social archetypes with the common language of knowledge.​​​​​​​ In other words, to bridge people with different expertise and provide comfortable and friendly learning opportunities.

so·cial cap·i·tal (noun) :

The networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling society to function effectively.

Secondary Research

U.S. adults who said they rarely or never felt select types of social inclusion as of 2018

25% have a lot in common with the people around them

27% feel being part of a group of friends

27% feel there are people who truly understand them

24% think they can find companionship when they want it

Survey (Comfort Zone in 2019)

We sent out surveys both online and on-ground, and we received 151 responses. After affinitizing and analyzing the data, we gained some main findings including

Interview

We have conducted interviews with 14 participants including the introvert and extrovert, to find out what is needed for them to interact with people who they are not familiar with, and what makes them step out of their comfort zone.

Finding:

• The lack of courage holds people back from stepping back;

• Like to talk about common interests;

• Want to prove themselves;

Primary Research (2nd Round)

Survey (Expertise in 2019)

Participants: 150 (100 from China, 50 from the US)

72% of all participants think they have or might have an expertise

73% of them are willing donʼt think they have the expertise, to learn from friends

43% of participants say that the lack of time stops them from learning, and others mention laziness and money

96% of all participants say that there is a skill that they want to master

47% of people surveyed consider themselves experts in a certain field. The majority of the participant is willing to teach or pass on this mastery to others.

Finding:

• People think they have an expertise, but need more confidence to declare it.

• People are willing to learn, but they need time and opportunity.

• Friends may be the key to unlocking potential.

Concept

Time and money, were the most dominant variers to engaging in the process of learning a new skill, even though the majority of people surveyed had a clear focus on the area they wished to participate in.

We challenged ourselves to look at these variers through a different lens, one where money and time became the asset and not the aspect of life that held users back.

We turned time into the currency that would enable users to participate in Xpand. Participants would trade their time in exchange for engaging in a learning experience. While the contributors would gain time tokens allowing them to engage in other learning opportunities or trade them in for money.

Information Architecture

User Testing

We recruited 5 participants to test our prototype. To better illustrate the flow, we chose to use paper prototypes to run the tests. We gathered some feedback and iterated our prototype.

Finding:

The search function was embedded 03 on the page of the learning exchange.

It is reasonable, but a bit hard to find.

The icons for "contact" and "comment" are similar, which can be confusing.

The page "X-hour" is hard to understand. The mechanism of accumulation of time and the skill exchange using time as the currency should be further explained.

Onboarding

Choosing their interests and identifying their masteries helps users to find the best matches to help each other.

Finding learning opportunities

Users could click the "Create New" button on the homepage and create their learning request post. At the same time, users could browse the posts from others to see what they could teach.

Teaching Courses

Users can search for the content and courses provided by other users. They can follow and communicate with each other to get more updates from them.

Managing Time

In the profile page, users could check all they had shared, learned, and taught. Also, they could manage all the tasks in progress and see how the “time” functions as a currency