Building a Social Machine: Co-designing a TimeBank for Inclusive Research

This paper discusses the construction of a Social Machine, a socio-technical system in which people achieve new, creative goals enabled by automated processes that are handled by technology. Specifically, the Social Machine is an online TimeBank, a time-based way for people to give and receive services; it is designed for use in the context of inclusive research (initially) with people with learning disabilities. We describe the use of physical and digital (online) focus groups to gather inputs to drive the construction of the TimeBank, and the processes by which we analysed the data to inform the design of the TimeBank. Our goal is to create an online community with a sense of connectedness, and we discuss this work through that lens, presenting insights gained towards: building the TimeBank itself; methodological implications of related but separate physical and digital focus groups; and building Social Machines.