Interviews

Danny K

Miriam C

Ralph (wait4godot)

Ilyas (notisik)

Thoughts

• Website seems intuitive to use and there was nothing to caused users to get completely stuck when trying to complete a task.
  • [M - probably least experienced] - “Easier to navigate than twitter”
• Biggest thing to improve on is explaining what things are to users. Especially highlighting elements that are different from other betting/prediction sites that more experience users just assumed and didn’t investigate.
• [M] + [I] expressed that they wouldn’t really care to use this site.
  • [M] - no experience with stocks/betting. site too far out of her comfort zone and too many numbers
    • How much do we care about trying to go mainstream and appeal to highschoolers who haven’t really entered the world of stocks yet?
  • [I] - Doesn’t really like speculative betting or buy into the idea prediction markets are actually effective at predicting the future.
  • both of them had a huge change in attitude when they realised the site in its current form is effectively, as [I] put it, “This is just a meme ass way you can donate to charity”.
    • [I] only realised this when I told him at the very end of the 45min test u can’t convert mana back to usd.
    • [I] seemed excited to have a play around on the website after the test with this new realisation.
      • Possibly due to his betting experience
      • Much more excited as a result!
    • [R] noticed the emphasis on charity right away and expressed how he could care less about it.

Critical Issues

1. Lack of sufficient information on how things work for new users.

   1. what probabilities mean when creating markets
      1. [M] In general had no clue what any of it meant
      2. [R+I] understood for YES & NO but clueless on free response.
         • Confused: am I getting good odds by putting the first answer? very not confident about being the first or second bet
         • [J] Multiple choice markets will be more intuitive
           • DECISION: James to work on multiple choice markets, and share UI with FR
      • [A] Could be “More likely” and “less likely”
        • Could be “Bet $5 and win $10”
   2. How shares work.
      1. everywhere we communicate bet bet bet
      2. People don’t understand how you can sell shares and it operates similar to a market at first
         • Similar to stock market, people don’t understand it
         • [A] Not as sure this is a problem; selling is kind of a “power feature”
      3. what is the incentive for buying early as opposed to waiting until the last possible second when there is the most information?
         • [A] Interesting! Yeah, we intuitively assume that betting at a lower odd is good, but clearly our UI isn’t making that clear

2. Communicate the initial liquidity that gets put into a market

   1. huge point of confusion made even worse because of free markets existing with no tooltip
   • DECISION: ian adds: M$ 100 FREE

3. Make free response markets clearer

   1. [I + R] were both confused about the page after creating the market. Is this still part of the creation process..? Assumption they would be able to add answers before it was done being created.
   2. scary to put the first answers as unsure if getting good odds/dont understand how it works.

4. Everyone assumed the value above the market represented the liquidity (none of them actually used this word)

   • [S] How about “high/med/low liquidity”
     • $$, $$$, $$$$
     • ⭐, ⭐⭐, ⭐⭐⭐
     • [i] “what you could win”
   • [s] DECISION: Change “volume” ⇒ “pool”
   • [d] icon is not easy to interpret

Other issues

• [ ] Confusion on the difference between liquidity and volume