Insights from MyMDT Closed Beta Testing
People love MyMDT and MDT’s data-sharing model
About MyMDT
In June, our team released MyMDT (beta), the first user-facing portal in the MDT ecosystem. It serves 2 main purposes in the MDT ecosystem: one is to collect anonymous data from whatever app it’s been installed in (A); the other is to deposit the user’s MDT rewards for contributing anonymous data (B). For the users, MyMDT is where they can earn MDT, spend MDT or transfer MDT.
Apart from rewarding the users for contributing anonymous data, we also designed a backend system that pushes simple tasks to MyMDT for the users to get extra rewards. It allows people to earn MDT immediately and helps them better engage with the app that MyMDT is installed in, as well as familiarizing them with how MyMDT works.
Read more on MDT: FAQ: What Is MDT And Why Should I Care About It?
MailTime is the first adopter of the MDT ecosystem and thus MyMDT was first installed in MailTime as an add-on feature. MailTime is an email messenger that makes your email correspondence look like an instant messaging conversation. It already has over 7 million downloads worldwide and has synced over 15 billion anonymous transaction records. MailTime is a perfect partner for the MDT ecosystem because of the large user base and the volume of valuable consumer data accumulated so far.
The Closed Beta Testing
To test out MyMDT and involve our communities in product development, we announced the MyMDT closed beta testing program on June 18, 2018. Over a thousand people signed up globally and we selected around 400 beta testers. These beta testers were selected from MailTime users and the MDT communities.
The closed beta version of MyMDT runs in MailTime app and does not include the feature of rewarding the users for contributing anonymous data yet. In the closed beta version of MyMDT, users can earn MDT by completing simple tasks and transfer their MDT to any email address.
The testing started from July 16 to August 3. To gather feedback, we set up a private chat group for beta testers to report bugs, ask questions, and make comments. We also sent out a survey to all activated beta testers. We also invited people to our hour-long user interviews, to get better insights on those who are neither MailTime users nor cryptocurrency users.
Over the past 3 weeks, more than 100 people joined our private chat group. More than 300 email accounts were registered in the closed beta version of MyMDT. Over 30,000 MDT was claimed in MyMDT. In the end, we received more than a thousand comments on MyMDT and MailTime. Thank you all!
Findings
We are processing all the data we have now, but we can’t wait to share a few early insights with you!
Let’s begin:
What do people like about MailTime?
Learning how people like MailTime is important because it is where MyMDT will pilot. The more people use MailTime, the more users MyMDT will reach.
The survey respondents are comprised of both MailTime users and people who have never used MailTime before. 40% of the survey respondents who have never used MailTime before made extra comments that they like MailTime. The most popular comment is how convenient and easy it is to send out emails in MailTime, because of it’s chat-like interface.
What do people like about MyMDT?
Average score: 4.3 / 5
In the survey, we asked people how much they like MyMDT as a newly added feature of MailTime, scaling from 1 to 5. 1 stands for “hate it” and 5 “love it”. More than half of the respondents answered “love it”. The average score is 4.3, which means that on an average, people stand between “kind of like it” and “love it”.
Also, there is no significant difference between answers from MailTime users and non-MailTime users. Therefore, we conclude that people quite enjoy MyMDT overall.
The survey also has an open question about what people like about MyMDT and here are the most common answers:
20% like the simple clean UI
18.5% like that it is easy to use
13% like the idea of earning tokens by completing simple tasks
13% like the transfer feature of MyMDT
The design team at MailTime / MDT always aim for simple clean design and great usability. Learning that people like MyMDT for its design and usability proves that we are heading the right direction.
As for the functionality of MyMDT, some survey respondents mentioned that they like being rewarded for completing simple tasks. For the closed beta testing, we introduced MyMDT as a new reward system to test out the idea. Beta testers were getting rewards for registering their email accounts in MailTime, sending out emails in MailTime, as well as adding their phone number in MyMDT for an extra layer of security. We are glad that people like this core feature of MyMDT and there will be more rewarding tasks in the future.
Another key feature of MyMDT is that it allows users to transfer their MDT to any email address, referred to as “the transfer feature” in the chart. If the email address is registered in MyMDT, the recipient will receive the tokens immediately. If the email address is not registered in MyMDT, the recipient will receive an email and when he/she registers, the tokens will appear in their accounts. Also, unlike transactions on the blockchain, when user transfers MDT to an email address, there is no transaction fees. This is a much easier and faster way to send MDT to friends or transfer MDT balance between the user’s own accounts.
To be clear, for now the target users of MyMDT aligns with those of MailTime. The majority of them are not familiar with cryptocurrency and it is highly likely that they don’t have an ETH wallet. Being able to transfer MDT easily by email lowers the barrier of using and owning MDT. With MyMDT, anyone with an email account can hold and transfer MDT. Among the survey respondents who have tried out the “transfer MDT via email address” feature, 81% reported that they completed the task with no struggles at all.
We are glad that many testers succeeded and that the testers liked the feature very much.
In addition to making transactions via email, MyMDT supports transferring MDT to an ETH wallet. However, the transaction of MDT from MyMDT to an ETH wallet will be on the blockchain and needs transaction fees, or gas.
How do people respond to data-sharing?
Even though the closed beta version of MyMDT does not reward users for contributing data yet, we tested out the idea of data-sharing with interviewees in the user interview.
For our user interviews, we invited both MailTime users and non-MailTime users and people with different levels of knowledge in cryptocurrency. We sampled different groups of people to get a better idea on how people understand the model of MDT and how they respond to data-sharing.
In the user interview, we introduced the MDT ecosystem to the interviewees and showed them a sample from Measurable AI, explaining that their data will be anonymized and aggregated. The goal is to learn if they can understand how their data is being used and if they are open to the idea of data-sharing in the MDT ecosystem.
So, in general, are people willing to share data in MDT ecosystem?
The answer is YES!
After learning about data collection, data aggregation and how data is exchanged on the MDT platform, all interviewees were interested and expressed that they felt comfortable sharing their data in the MDT ecosystem.
To be more specific, here some reasons why they feel comfortable sharing their data in the MDT ecosystem:
- No personal information will be collected
No one wants their personal information to be sold. People are usually very protective of their personal information, such email address, phone number, home address and full name.
To begin with, MailTime does not collect personal information from emails. In addition, the MDT ecosystem protects people’s privacy by using blockchain technology. Each MyMDT account is associated with a hashed address and the data collected will only trace back to the hashed address. The hashed address does not reveal any information of the user, such as physical location, device ID or email address.
- All data is aggregated
Aggregated data gathers each user’s data and provide insights in a summary form. It analyzes purchase behaviors for a particular group of users instead of any single person. Even when their data does not contain personal information like name and email address, some interviewees expressed that they are more comfortable sharing their data if it will be aggregated.
In Measurable AI, all data is aggregated and anyone who views the report cannot trace the analysis back to those who contributed data.
- Users have full control of their data
Some interviewees talked about how they are more willing to share certain types of data and more reserved about some personal purchases. It is understandable. Even when the data is anonymized and aggregated, the thought of sharing private personal purchases might still make people uncomfortable.
That is why in the MDT ecosystem, the user is given complete control of what data they want to share. The vision of MDT is that everyone is the owner of his/her data. It is ok if you only want to share your iTunes receipts but not your Amazon purchases. It is ok if you only want to share your Netflix subscriptions but not your walmart.com receipts. It is also ok if you don’t want to share at all.
With all concerns addressed, all interviewees gave positive responses to data-sharing. They felt comfortable sharing their data in the MDT ecosystem. This conclusion makes us more confident about introducing MDT’s vision and data-sharing process to our users.
Next Step
We are still in the process of organizing and analyzing all data. We will continue to improve the usability of MyMDT and work on feature development based on our findings. Stay tuned for more blogs on MyMDT and the upcoming public beta!
About MDT
Measurable Data Token (MDT) is a decentralized data exchange economy connecting users, data providers, and data buyers and denominates the value of data. MDT compensates users for sharing anonymous big data while providing data buyers and providers with a more efficient and impartial trading model. The team previously built MailTime, an email app with over 7 million users, which is also the first use case of MDT ecosystem. MDT is now listed on OKEx, gate.io, FCoin and Bancor Network.
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