Browsing by Subject "sharing economy"
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Item The Sharing Economy with Heart: Developing a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace for Patients and Their Families Traveling for Medical Care(2018-05) Wozniak, Amanda; Summers, Kathryn; Walsh, Gregory; University of Baltimore. School of Information Arts and Technologies; University of Baltimore. Master of Science in Interaction Design and Information ArchitectureHosts for Humanity is a non-profit organization that connects patients and their families traveling for medical care with volunteers willing to host them. Currently, patients and hosts are matched manually; however, for the organization to expand, a web interface must be developed that can be used by both guests and hosts. The interface must be designed to both mitigate the extreme stress that some users may be experiencing and cultivate philanthropic feelings to encourage more users to volunteer as hosts. To design the interface, a literature review of peer-to-peer marketplaces and hotel websites was conducted to reveal that all three parties—guests, hosts, and Hosts for Humanity—must appear trustworthy and credible to each other for the platform to be successful. Then, interviews with hosts and guests uncovered the motivations users had for becoming hosts; hosts’ concerns; and the importance of convenience, cost, and location for guests. Discovery from the interviews was used to create a prototype, which was tested with both hosts and guests. During the test, users were given a series of tasks to accomplish with the prototype. Pain points were recorded, and if necessary, the prototype was iterated before the next test. The host testing revealed the importance of finding a balance between providing enough and too much contact information for both guests and hosts. The guest testing revealed the importance of simplicity and prompts to reduce user stress. The prototype is ready for development.Item Trust signals in the babysitting industry in the sharing economy(2023-05) Flamm, Ruth; Summers, Kathryn; Walsh, Greg; University of Baltimore. Division of Science, Information Arts and Technologies; University of Baltimore. Master of Science in Interaction Design and Information ArchitectureThis thesis will explore the meaning of trust, trust propensity, trust signals/cues, and other trust builders. It will then relate how trust drives the sharing economy and is essential in the babysitting industry. It will then fill in the gaps found in the research by testing the trust cues of mutual friends and star ratings in the babysitting industry of the sharing economy. These trust cues were tested through two surveys. The results were analyzed using t-tests, ANOVA (Analysis of Variance), and post hoc tests. The findings showed that star ratings are a stronger immediate trust cue than written reviews and that mutual friends substantially impact hiring rates. It found that as the number of mutual friends increased, so did hiring rates. It also found that mutual friends seem to have more strength than star ratings and that the presence of mutual friends may affect users' willingness to pay.Item Why COVID-19 won’t kill cities(The Conversation) Short, John Rennie; Orlando, Michael J.