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The user can keep track of historical bid/ask prices for any midnight using the "Midnights Watchlist" page. The main panel contains one table, which has information regarding changes in bid/ask prices for any midnights the user is interested in. There are six columns: the first column is the midnight, and the second is the day. The table can be sorted by these two columns. The next four columns are the last known bid/ask price, and change between the last and second-to-last bid/ask prices.
Analysis
This UI design takes a traditional auction approach rather than a market approach, which may be easier to learn for non-expert users. As shown in the Current Trades oage, a Midnight is being represented as a object for sale, with a listed price. Naturally, this is more intuitive than displaying a bid/ask price for units of labor. From our experience, even users who have market experience sometimes get confused that sellers of midnights are actually buyers of labor. In this respect, it is clearly advantageous to avoid securitizing a Midnight.
However, at the same time, the auction approach is not as efficient. Suppose a user offers to buy Monday Pots at $20.00 as shown in the picture under Current Trades. Another user is able to click on the link to submit a ask price. The ask price will always be higher than $20.00 (which in a sense is the bid price). The buyer now gets notified via email for every ask above $20.00 and these offers also become available under My Contracts. In order for the buyer to complete the trade, he would navigate to his contracts and select one (or none) of his offers. In most if not all cases, the buyer should choose to buy from the lowest ask price available. Yet the UI forces the user to complete this task even though it is clear which offer he should accept. This step could be eliminated entirely.
Arguably, visibility is also impacted. Since no bid/ask prices are available except to the buyer, users have a hard time gauging the value of the labor market as a whole. In many cases, users offer their labor based relatively on what others offer. For example, if the lowest ask price for labor was $40.00 (visible only to the buyer), then another potential seller could ask for $30.00 rather than $21.00 and reasonably expect his ask to be accepted. It could also be potentially frustrating to the buyer, who cannot see the ask prices for similar labor on other days as a comparison. There is no public visibility of transactions in this auction system, which has its negative impacts on efficient Midnight markets.
Design #3
Storyboard
Ichigo logs into the Midnight Exchange with his MIT certificate. The default page is 'My Midnights.' It displays everyone's midnights for the week, and Ichigo's are shown in bold
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