InboxDollars

Survey Website

Research

Overview

Introduction

Inbox Dollars is a platform for users to sign up and complete surveys for money. The reason that I thought this research is needed because the website has plenty of tricks to keep the users from coming back. However, I thought some of these tricks are unethical. The fact that this is a platform for users to get pay for completing surveys, but they do not inform the users about the fact that they cannot get pay until they have reached $30. Therefore, a lot of users will quit before they reach that $30 since the payment for each survey is very low.

Objective

The objective of this research is that I wanted to see how other users feel regarding the payment and how they can get a better experience using this site. I think the platform should be fair for both the business and the users as well. Especially if this is a platform for both, then they shouldn’t be tricking the users to help the business complete the surveys while not pay the users and still get the money from the businesses.

User Research

Questions

The following is an outline of the questions.

How much did you make from the site?
How often fo you visit the site?
Do you think the site is easy to use?
Would you return to the site?
Would you recommend the site to other users?

Methods

The methods that I’d like to use would be open-ended surveys or user interviews. Since this is a feedback type of research and hoping that the website will change its way, I thought the qualitative method is best. Within the qualitative methods, Depending on the situations, perhaps open-ended surveys may be enough, but if there’s a chance of doing user interviews that would be best. Therefore, it all really depends on the users I get. If people are more flexible with time then I can do user interviews.

Users

The users that I will need are those who have interacted with Inboxdollar before. If I was to have 5 users then I will need at least 2 users that have to earn money from the site. If all 5 has earned money from the site that is ideal. I just wanted to see what was their overall experience and if they would ever return to the site again if they do get paid or have reached at least $30.

Time

In order to get users, it will certainly take sometimes because as I have mentioned the survey pays as little as $0.25 and if they wanted to reach $30. It will take at least a couple of months. I would also like to just recruit people who use it on their own schedule. Some people leave for a few months and come back to do some more surveys while others will reach $30 in about a month if they do it every day. Time would be difficult to set for this research, so recruit those who are within my user requirements are best.

Goals

Since I believe there are many issues with this site. Not all of them are technical, some of the issues are the lack of information provided before users sign up or already started. Therefore, I wanted to find out the following.

The first goal of the survey is to see if users are willing to come back to this site. Since the purpose of this site is for their users to continue to use it.
The second goal is to see how satisfied they are and how hard they are trying to work to get to their desired amount of money.
The third goal is to see if users have run into issues and if they are still willing to continue using this site.

Survey & Results

Reporting

Process

Common Themes

All users sign up with InboxDollars because of the $5 bonus upfront.
All users experience fewer surveys when they are closer to reach $30.
Besides the survey, all users use other activities as well to get money.
None of the users have seen $5-$10 surveys which are advertised by the InboxDollars prior to signing up.

Interview Conclusion

Overall, two out of the three users I interviewed received their money. One of them never received the money. One of the users who got the money said “Check your paid emails every day until you get your money in your hands. They will try to keep you coming back by "crediting your account with the $3 they already stole from you." WALK AWAY. and don't look back. “ The other user who is happy with the site said “ This is not a site to get you rich, but you will get some spending money. Just have to keep trying.”

Since these users are found online, we are all strangers to each other. It was not the easiest for them to feel comfortable participating in my project. I had two interviewers that were willing to do a voice call while another is only willing to respond to me through messages. All three were able to provide ample information. During the process, the users who liked the site were really happy about telling us the experience they have and encourages others who would like to get some side money to do it. On the other hand, the users who have bad experiences share tons of the issues they run into and recommend to stay away.