**Best viewed in full screen** Trust and reputation play an increasingly important role in today's digital economy. General Assembly and The Bold Italic are teaming up to explore how startups build trust into the core design and function of their products. We'll discuss how design can be used to inspire confidence and convey a sense of ease. A discussion with: Logan Green, Co-Founder & CEO, Lyft and Zimride Andrew Schapiro, Graphic Design Lead, Airbnb Avery Lewis, Head of Product, Getaround Luke Woods, Product Design Manager, Facebook Bastian Lehmann, Founder & CEO, Postmates Jonah Houston, Systems Designer, IDEO

1. Illustrations by Jeremy Sypniewski
Want to get in touch? I’m on Twitter @ mrrioki.
Or email howdy@magicspoon.net.

2. To start, let’s have the
panelists give a short
position piece on trust
I’m pleased to be and how it relates to
Thanks for coming. moderating on a topic near their work...
and dear to my heart as a
systems designer at IDEO.
The cars With zimride the question
with pink was how can you get two
Hi. I’m The CEO moustaches! complete strangers to
Logan. at zimride establish trust online AND
and lyft. get comfortable enough
to get in the car with each
other???
Everyone remembers...
We’ve learned a ton
It’s a very personal space. transitioning from
zimride to lyft.
And we’re Hey, speaking
trying to of transitions...
make that
possible.
2

3. With lyft there’s no time
to vet and get comfortable.
You hear about
“mullet apps”.
Everything that we’re doing to
help users establish trust is Hi. I’m
happening in the background. Bastian.
In the app you’re
just seeing the tip
of the iceberg.
We have to We’re trying to convince
think a lot you to have a magical
about trust. experience by getting food
I’m German. delivered by a person
German, you’ve never met before
but nice. and know very little about.
I’m the CEO
at Postmates.
3

4. We have to convince We try to get you to
you to ignore this. actually give some
random person you
Hi. I’m met on the internet
In real time. Avery. your car.
I head up
product at
Getaround.
Trust took
three pieces:
1. The Platform
2. Between Users Hi. I’m
3. Screening of Bad Luke.
Actors
Products are about people. They Trust is something that
wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for goes hand in hand with It’s a core
I work on the product the people who use them. people and with human aspect of
design team at facebook. interactions. There’s no the space.
way to get around trust.
4

5. How do we create trust
Hi. I’m Andrew. We have a brand that relies in our users around
on a lot of trust—people having very consistent
I’m the graphic opening their homes to experiences?
design lead at strangers.
Airbnb.
How do we also What was your most I was inspired to start
preserve delight, surprising revelation zimride when facebook
learning, and about designing for trust? came out with its
discovery? platform.
CHAPTER ONE
It’s about putting
an identity behind
people.
You know, I was thinking
about cities. In a way they We lost that feeling of
grew faster than we were trusting our neighbors.
able to handle.
5

6. This new ID/trust
The interesting thing is information layer helps
It’s allowing us to us connect and do things On a more specific
that tech is no longer come together.
separating us. we never would have level—ratings.
done before.
When Postmates started, the We implemented
customer had the ability to this feature and
rate the postman (courier). it’s been surprising.
There was no way
for courier to rate
the customer.
There’s a huge difference I’d really love Sometimes the customer is
between the ratings that This diversity of ratings is to know the happy—they got their
you give a courier and the something we don’t fully origin of that service, but the driver feels
ratings you receive. understand yet. perception like they were treated like a
of trust. driver or like a service
person.
6

7. In peer-to-peer (P2P) Ratings get thrown “I’m giving every car I rent a 3 star rating—they’re not
a big component is around a lot as a exceptional, they’re all just normal cars. I get in
feeling appreciated. thing to build trust. someone’s car and it’s like my friend’s car. That’s an
ok, good, acceptable car. It’s 3 stars.”
And I didn’t
Being treated realize how
like a human. meaningless
they were
until a guy
wrote in
and said:
1 star could Knowing why allows us to
We get little to no We want to get more mean car respond and make the trust
information from the understanding of WHY smells like in our community and the facebook nearby.
5 star rating system. people leave bad smoke or people in our community
ratings. guy was 15 better as a whole. Everything
minutes late. has 4 stars.
We haven’t
solved this
yet, but we
want to.
Net promoter score is interesting. You
It doesn’t make sense. ...But maybe If I think about people I’m subtract out all of the things in the
it does... friends/acquaintances with, middle and look at things rated really
How can everything and I think do I really trust highly and really poorly and you figure
have 4 stars? this person, I’d tend to say out what the net score is.
yes.
But, maybe I haven’t
been yet in a situation
that really tested the
limits of how much I
trust them.
7

8. Mutual reviews are important
for gaining trust between our Another thing is having the payment system
users. online. This ensures meaningful experiences
AND trust between users offline.
Accurate reviews are really
important to creating trust
in the community.
Our most surprising
revelation was about One of our biggest
authenticity. design assets is
What is a photography.
place really
like???
You don’t How do we
know that make it
much about authentic?
it.
We pushed our
photographers It’s pretty easy to establish
to deliver not trustworthiness in person With the remoteness of the
just beautiful By doing this we’re at a glance. internet you have to add in
work, but also creating really helpful lots of layers—how do you
work that was tools that are based in add the human back in?
really accurate. accuracy, NOT just
beauty.
CHAPTER TWO You can do this
in milliseconds.
8

9. We show a really large We have that 5 star rating The same goes for the
image of the person system. You see the number courier. He sees the
that does the delivery. A picture is very of deliveries that person did. customer’s name, rating,
important. It’s important to show a level the number of deliveries.
of experience.
We show it crisp,
we show it nice;
it’s a very clean
interface.
When you order you I ordered through
The biggest asset we have expect us to have the Postmates and the
at Postmates is the inventory. inventory right. restaurant had
We’re trying And we’re trying to understand stopped serving the
to play this the inventory of a whole city. And being item I ordered...
both ways. accurate
builds trust.
Getting a call right away to If we can’t solve something Signals for trusting a human in person:
discuss other options far then we love to put a
outweighed any dismay of process in place that helps Take the tech out!
the restaurant not having work around things.
initial dish.
It’s hard to do,
It meant Then over time but actually
a TON. we replace that very, very
with a product. valuable.
9

10. Signals for trusting a human online:
Online, none of that exists. We And what we found was the
have to resort to secondary best way to trust the person
ways of trusting people... was to meet them.
...their facebooks, their social So we started
networks, their platform engagement, a key handoff.
their number of rentals/deliveries/etc.
Users were comfortable
You’d meet the guy, hand him your key, It felt a lot less like a doing the key swap because
he’d say ok, and you’d say bring it back. company and more just they knew the renter had
like friends sharing cars. already crossed OUR
threshold of trust.
So then the
decision came
up to the
owner.
That’s actually a pretty cool
example where introducing Looking at how we There’s a huge
a little bit of friction actually handle tough situations responsibility
helped the product. that come up... there.
Our site integrity
At facebook team does a lot of
scale 1% of great work.
users is still
A LOT of
people.
It’s work that
matters.
10

11. We’re lucky to have people
that are entrepreneurial— We hold some responsibility
What happens How do we be mindful they want to generate in helping them do a good
if someone’s of the line between free income off our site. job and helping them learn.
being bullied? speech and safety and
humanity?
Helping them understand
what actions they can take
to help improve their own
These are issues we’re success.
still coming to terms
with as a society... So there’s a role of
education there, too.
I think that’s the only way
we’ve found to maintain
Taking the tech out We had NO tech that high bar.
was true for us. solution to find
nice friendly people.
We have all these
processes, but the
most important thing So we do an
for our service is living in person
up to this idea that it’s interview.
your friend with a car.
How portable is trust Splitting trust. Platform
between platforms engagement is a metric
and engagements? for inter-user trust.
CHAPTER THREE
11

12. You don’t want them
Because of collaborative to find a least common People are taking their
consumption bad actors denominator to get in reputations with them.
are a bit of a worry. and get past the trust
systems.
Is there a way to bake in an The challenge with portability
opportunity for people to is similar to the problems with
have a second chance? a 5 star rating system.
So that people
aren’t just bad Everybody ends
actors forever? up with a 4.
Ratings are intricate. These ratings are different. Brand and context around
a rating are extremely
There are ways to splice important and you risk
the data to see what a losing that if you merge
particular rating means. it into a unified score.
12

13. Maybe you need something Most of us, again, probably
like a credit score? end up with 3.5 or 4 stars…
Maybe that’s how
Are you a good driver? ...somewhere life really is.
in the middle.
How do you rent out
your apartment?
There’s a lot of things.
For some things I would
want a very strict, precise It doesn’t mean you’re
numerical rating system. going to love the food,
but it means that it meets
the safety threshold.
Like what NYC is doing with
public health and restaurant
CHAPTER FOUR
ratings is awesome. In terms of whether I’m
going to love the food or
not I definitely don’t
want a numerical score.
What types of fear factors The literature says trust
do you face that you’re is built over lots of small, Understanding the
trying to solve and how repeatable actions. You questions and finding
did you first detect them? make an obligation and a way to address each
then you uphold that. one. We launched without additional
insurance but questions kept
coming up. So we put together
There’s a checklist: a million dollar per occurrence
Are they a safe driver? insurance plan to cover every
Are they a criminal? driver.
Are the vehicles safe?
13

14. We had to lobby and fight
Initially, there to get a law passed that We had to build trust in us
was no trust endorsed peer-to-peer first, then in the platform,
in the platform. car sharing. and then between users.
All messaging
threads on are While you’re communicating,
Research. Anticipate on our site. in that browser window you
the needs of users. actually see that this person
Solve for them. has a verified phone number.
They’re connected to facebook.
They’re connected through
LinkedIn.
As a society we try to
We want to actually give figure out what does it
as much information as mean to have so much And things that are digital
possible where people content be digital? are going to be around for
need it. a long time.
They’re going to be indexed.
They’re going to
be searchable...
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15. When things were more
They’ll be around analog there was privacy
forever. I don’t think we via obscurity.
have that figured
out.
Analog stuff is CHAPTER FIVE
hard to find.
Any insights in terms of
helping women have a We wanted to make it
good experience on clear lyft was a service
these sharing platforms? that was safe for women.
What better way to do
that, in addition to all
the background
checks, than to have
women driving?
Andrew mentioned pay- Because you do not need any cash, the person that
Women will use it as a ments, and this is not an delivers your item, you know his face, you know his name,
passenger, but can also exciting example, but we you see on a map when he arrives, and you don’t need to
see themselves as a driver. have a lot of feedback, pay him anything. That adds a level of security.
especially from women.
15

16. We wanted to make the We make sure the users are not bad actors.
product safe for everyone.
Whether you’re a man or a woman
It’s the iceberg effect again—you when you go to this person’s house
see the product that is above the you know that the car will be there.
water and you don’t see what’s
going on behind the scenes.
And you know that this person will
But it’s important. be friendly.
There’s no margin With our Neighborhoods
for error here. product accuracy was
paramount.
When you’re doing a Women solo travelers
physical transaction with want to understand what
tech it HAS to be safe. a neighborhood’s like.
We highlight the accuracy
of places so that people We are now officially
can see up front whether out of time.
they’d feel comfortable
in that place. Good job to
the panel.
Want to get in touch?
I’m on Twitter @ mrrioki. Or
Thank you all email howdy@magicspoon.net.
for coming out.
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