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user exp flowchart
Bits is an Android application that facilitates community people-to-person micro-loans.
Disadvantaged persons have a hard time playing ‘catch-up’. Small set-backs really set them back. Say you’re a single parent living paycheck-to-paycheck and your car breaks down. Your car is your only means of transportation, meaning that you need it to get to work and to run family errands. You’re barely making enough as it is to cover daily necessities though so, unless you have an emergency fund*, you’re straight out-of-luck.
For those of us who are fortunate enough to have a dollar or several to spare, we may want to give back to our community, but we want to see our money have a direct, immediate and significant effect.
*According to Bankrate's latest financial security index survey, 34 percent of American households experienced a major unexpected expense over the past year. However, only 39 percent of survey respondents said they would be able to cover a $1,000 setback using their savings.
--> In comes Bits!
Loan details:
- Users may only receive and give loans to community members (as defined by a mixture of city and surrounding radius).
- Users may only request up to $500 at a time
- Users may not lend money while they owe money
- Users may only lend up to $25 at a time
- Loans will have a set due date (max: one month later)
Bits changes the crowdsourcing game. Those who come to Bits aren't looking for a hand-out, they're looking for necessary assistance. After their time of need, loan requesters will pay back their kind loan gifters.
Planned future work:
- Messaging - Users gain the ability to thank users for their loan; other users get to check in their their loanees)
- Security features - Detecting “spam”-type posts
- "Report User" feature - Allows users to report Bits abusers
- Hidden Ratings System - Users will have a hidden Bits rating. This rating will take into account things like: Money lent out, money overdue, amount of times loan money is overdue, user reports, etc.
About us: Three out of our four team members were first-time hackers attendees! We stumbled together through learning how to handle GitHub merge conflicts and accident overwrites to create our hack.
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