Observations & Interviews

1. A Leader of Orientation Program - Jane Jetson

Jane has been working with the Freshman Orientation program for two consecutive years of being an undergraduate at MIT. She genuinely enjoys meeting the freshman when the semester starts and sharing her insights on what it's like to be at MIT. Jane claims that it's the best part of her semester. Through the program she has engaged in several activities including dance performances, theater roles and various sports activities. The program sets up groups of roughly ten to twelve freshman assigned to one orientation leader. She especially likes nights when her group can go out to dinner across the Bridge or around Harvard Square.

Dinner nights can sometimes be impromptu. The orientation goes on for a week but halfway through the week, the schedule is more flexible and lenient. The week's schedule does not include a single mandatory dinner night. Rather, freshmen are encouraged to get to know others in their group by going out to dinner with them. On such nights when a group plans to go out with Jane, she says, "I never carry cash on me and neither do several of the freshman. I have a check book but I noticed the freshman aren't prone to use one either. For most of them it's their first time eating with a group of people they just met. Dinner can be at times awkward and it is up to the leader to make the freshmen feel comfortable.We try to be organized about how the bill gets paid but the worst case scenario is friends pay for friends and figure out who gets paid back later." She admitted that it could be a messy situation and has no idea how to make things work out much more smoothly.

Lessons learned

• during freshman orientation week, several groups go out for dinners
• these groups are made of newly introduced freshman, not yet friends
• freshmen usually don't carry cash on them, they naively sometimes expect free food all of that week
• friends end up paying for others and the billing situation quickly grows complicated and nested
• they need a simple way of paying each other back and avoiding confusion

2. A Working Professional - George Jetson

George is a early-thrities male who started working a couple of years back. As a busy single young adult, he hardly has time to cook for himself and generally prefers to eat out. He generally goes out for lunch on weekdays with his colleagues from work. George and his 'gang' consider themselves foodies and love trying out different cuisines and restaurants. On most Fridays, he and his colleagues like to unwind after work, with drinks at their favorite pub. George also likes to celebrate his colleagues' birthdays at work with cakes that everyone generally pitches in for.

George remarked that in such situations,  usually one among his group would pay for the total expense and figure out the individual debts later. This generally involved an exchange of emails with the debt amounts and bank account details and then transferring funds to each individual account. Often he would go out so frequently that the next set of emails would be exchanged before the previous debts were settled, and it would be difficult to track when debts weren't settled immediately. George would generally consolidate unsettled debts over a month or two and send reminders. However, he finds it uncomfortable to deal with such matters, especially when the records become inconsistent since it is difficult to keep track of payments and more importantly since it involves people with whom he shares a working relationship.

Lessons learned

• working young adults like to spend time in group recreational activities, involving expenses.
• Keeping track of recurring expenses via email exchanges is not scalable and quickly becomes unclear.
• Records among different people can become inconsistent, especially with debts cycles among groups.
• It is uncomfortable to keep track of debts, payments and remind people.
• It is a tedious process to remember bank details for different people and pay each one via online transfers.

3. A Group of Roomates - Elroy Jetson

Elroy shares his apartment with two other rooommates. Every month his roommates and he have to pay rent and utilities. These are recurring expenses and each one's share remains the same. However, occasionally, he is unable to pay his rent by the due date, and requests on of his roommates to cover it for him for a few days. He keeps track of these using his notebook which though manual, is easy to maintain. 

He enjoys taking short weekend trips along with his roommates to a National Park or his parents' cabin. He usually finds that these trips involve a lot of small expenses like gas, toll, snacks, etc. These are usually difficult to keep track of such small expenses, and is left wondering what he spent money on by the end of the trip. His roommate tried recording these expenses using a notebook and manually calculating them later which was difficult in terms of dividing the expenses appropriately. Since this happened often, Elroy's roomate switched to using a spreadsheet using his smartphone. He would later run a nifty little Haskell script to compute the individual expenses. Elroy finds that his friend's solution helped make this process easier, but finds that entering details into a single smartphone or shared spreadsheet isn't easy and they would often forget to run the script to settle expenses soon after a trip. Elroy says "(We) Forget who owes what. (I) Won't get paid back, and I wouldn't ask my friends to pay me back because whats a few dollars between us."

Lessons learned

• people living together keep track of recurring shared expenses manually via notebooks.
• Trips taken together often involve multiple expenses which are difficult to keep track of. 
• User would like to know exactly what he spent on during the trip, both individually and as a group.
• Recording (Data-entry) these expenses using smartphones and spreadsheets is not easy since it requires all the expenses to be recorded either on the same phone, or requires consolidating multiple sources, or sharing spreadsheets online.
• Calculating expenses can often be tedious when done by hand.
• Automating the process using scripts seems like a temporary patch with potential for a cleaner alternative.

User Classes

Students

• Students often enjoy having meals or shopping together with friends.
• Most students prefer paying individually by splitting the bill.
• Some teenagers do not have credit card or checking account so that they have to pay by cash, which makes the paying process even more inefficient.

Working Professionals

• Many working professionals hold group meetings during meal time or eat out for lunch as a group.
• They are usually very busy and they might be happy to use an efficient method to track and pay debts.
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Clubs/Organizations

• Organizations often need to purchase public facilities, which should be paid by every member.
• The amount in the bill might be relatively large.

Needs & Goals

People who make the payment

• An easy way to record the expense and related details
• An transparent and automated way to calculate the individual expense.
• A non-intrusive way to share it with people involved.
• A clear way to keep track of debts.
• A friendly way for a user to remind people that owe them
• An easy and secure way for one person to make a payment and be reimbursed by other members of the group.

People who need to repay

• A transparent record of the expenses details.
• A way to keep track of total debts with an individual.
• A way to shuffle debts and break through cycles amongst groups.
• A way to record payment or clearing of a specific debt.
• An easy and secure way for a person to allow someone to make a payment and either deduct the money he owes from his or her account, or to create an IOU virtual receipt