A Typical Day Using the Request Network iOS App
I’m a huge fan of the Request Network project that is currently underway. I’m not going to discuss any technicals of the project in this post, there are plentiful resources you can find that discuss those in amazing detail.
To give a general overview of what the team is trying to accomplish with the platform I’ll give you a quote from Christophe L’s Medium post on September 17th:
“Request is a decentralized network which allows anyone to request a payment (a Request Invoice), where the recipient is able to pay in a secure way and all the information is stored in a decentralized authentic ledger. This results in cheaper, easier and more secure payments and allows a wide range of automation possibilities on top of it.”
Check out these posts below for information on what Request does, and how it can and possibly will change the way we make all sorts of transactions!
So, I’ve been following this project since pre-ICO and have been watching everyday as this super professional team makes amazing progress on their product and have been blown away by not only their timeliness of updates, but also communication with the community that is intrigued with what they’re working on.
I just finished my fall semester at school, and am about to start applying for internships for the summer. I’m hoping to find an internship doing UX Design/Product Design and thought what better way to add something to my portfolio than build something based on Request. Over the past 24 hours I have designed an iOS prototype for their platform.
As someone who is intrigued with user experience, I wanted to take inspiration from the couple mockup images the team had previously released of what their iOS app might look like and build my own version incorporating various use cases that I think the average person might find themselves in on a daily basis when interacting with their platform.
Below I present a few scenarios in which users might find Request incredibly efficient/versatile to use as a means of transacting instead of using payment methods such as PayPal, Credit Card payments, etc.
First Use Case: Business Expenses
With Request, employees at any company could easily input all of their business expenses in whatever currency they were paid for in and get refunded by their employers with the click of a button. Depending on where the expenses took place, the Request Network can automatically input the correct tax’s to the payments based on specific countries/states applicable laws. Right now when dealing with business expenses, it may take till the end of the month to get refunded, but with Request you can get refunded for your business expenses whenever your higher up receives the request. The expenses can then easily be added to your companies book by adding visibility to whoever is in charge of accounting at your company so they can track all of the incoming business expenses in real time.
For the prototype I added a feature I think would be really cool, which is the ability to take pictures of your receipts sort of like how The Bank of America app allows you to scan checks right into your account. I don’t know if this is something that the Request team has thought of, but I think it would be super beneficial to this aspect of the platform. Below are a few mockups of this section.
Second Use Case: E-Commerce
E-Commerce could benefit by using Request for a number of reasons. From a buyers perspective, the transaction fees when buying things using Request are extremely minuscule in comparison to using PayPal and Visa for example. Not only do you not have to worry about crazy fees for purchases, but the Request Network also enables you to have a peace of mind when purchasing from merchants due to their reputation system. On Request, users will have a reputation score based on how quickly they complete their transactions with other parties. From the standpoint of a seller, I think that including things such as promised shipment time would be another great addition to the reputation system to ensure that merchants are keeping their word for how long they are telling consumers their orders will take to reach them. With Request you can pay in literally any currency. Various countries native currencies or a plethora of crypto currencies. Even if a merchant isn’t accepting a certain type of currency, Request is able to serve as an intermediary and exchange any currency you pay with for what the merchant is accepting thanks to partnerships they have with others in the Blockchain space. This costs the buyer and seller literally nothing! Another huge benefit that consumers have when paying with Request for E-Commerce is that they won’t have to input any personal credit card information, so that gives consumers another sense of peace of mind for security purposes.
For this section of the prototype, I acted as a consumer making a purchase with The Triple B’s, Big Baller Brand. What better way for a growing business to create more demand then to be able to accept any type of currency from anywhere in the world. E-Commerce sites could potentially with Request give consumers the ability to make one full payment for purchases or multiple installments of automatic payments over a period of time based on any type of purchasing parameters they choose to set when they start incorporating Request.
Third Use Case: Escrow/Fund/Gift
Congratulations, your best friend from college is having a baby boy! The parents named you the kids God Father, wow what an honor you must be amazing. Being the amazing person you are, you have decided to use Request to start a college fund for the soon to be born baby. With Request you can make any type of escrow payment and set endless versatile parameters for any type of situation. For this example, I have said that you’re going to give the kid 3 ETH every year from the day he’s born until he turns 18. The payment structure is set up annually so every year on his birthday for those years 3 more ETH will be sent to his account. The funds will be locked up until his 18th birthday and monitored by both parents by setting visibility, so hopefully he doesn’t go wild and just spend it all immediately when he turns 18. (Fingers crossed). You also decided since you guys don’t live in the same city that you’d like to set up a gift every year for his birthday starting on the 10th payment. I’ve chosen to allow 0.25 ETH be immediately available for the kid on each annual payment starting on his 10th birthday when he’ll probably have some things he’d like to purchase. The escrow potential is limitless with Request.
Fourth Use Case: Travel, Splitting Costs with Multiple Parties, Fun Stuff
This one is pretty self explanatory. For this scenario the user has planned a trip to Amsterdam with friends. When paying with Request in this situation, the user can seamlessly split the cost of the apartment between the parties and requests will be automatically sent to his friends addresses for them to pay so that the trip can be confirmed by the home owner. If there was a security deposit involved, Request would really come in handy because when the home owner returns after you guys finish your trip and find that you left the place nice and tidy, they can simply send your security deposit back to you at the touch of a button. Again, minuscule transaction fees using Request in comparison to other payments options that are available today. Also, any types of currency could be accepted so while it says USD below, any of the users could pay in the form of currency they choose to and Request will automatically exchange it for what the home owner is accepting. The simplicity and ease of use is astounding.
Hope you enjoyed this post and are just as excited to use Request when it becomes available as I am. Any feedback on any aspects of this project is greatly appreciated! Check out the full run-through of the prototype via the YouTube link up top or down below. I will include some more assets from this project below as well.
