Xerox PARC / hOurWorld
Working with Victoria Bellotti and a distributed team, I co-authored research in motivation online (winning CHI awards) and designed an open-source, reference platform for timebanks around the world, which are used by over a million people.
Responsibilities
Conducted qualitative research and analysis
Second author on award-winning papers presented at CHI
Built information architecture, wireframes, and interactive prototypes
Led usability testing, which helped reduce task failures by up to 100%, and presenting findings
Led team in researching and mapping user stories and journeys
Research showed that a top task for a timebank's user base was requesting or offering rides for neighbors who needed assistance, and that this user base was mostly mobile-only. I designed an accessible feature that allowed users to specify what assistance (allergy-friendly cars, adaptive tools compatible, time ranges, one- or two-way) they needed and match with other users who had indicated they could be on call for giving rides.
The original UI I was tasked with updating. Though functional, in testing it showed that users had issues finding what was under what category (and were often confused by the "More" button). This led me first to categorize and rate the usability issues, and then propose paring down the top-level interactions, moving what were some top-level categories into the features where users could specify their needs.
A reduced feature set, centered on tasks rather than the backend structure, improved the task completion rate and produced more happy paths and responses from users.
Timebanks are community-based volunteer projects that allow people to offer goods and services in exchange. People can also "earn" hours by performing services, to "spend" later in requesting service from others.
Though more frequently used in Europe, North America has many local timebanks.
