Back in the 1990s when we started a company that was intended to bridge the gap between art and industry (Conchsense) - our web designer thought I was insane to want buttons that didn't fit the web standards of the 1997. Square buttons with text and drop shadow. I wanted shapes that morphed into new pages when you hovered over them that would disappear unless you clicked while on the shape. We were early (and young and inexperienced)and I allowed my team to convince me that I was being too revolutionary for our intended users - but as it turned out, having a website at all turned out to be too revolutionary for most of our users and clients - so at this point, I think we should have pushed the envelope - worst case scenario would have been the same result.
I recently posted a thread on "intention to use" much along this vein. When was the last time you remember "dialing into" the Internet? It was long ago, right? Now it is everywhere and always-on and we just use it without thinking like electricity or running water. A "Netflix" button is on every new TV remote. Crypto still lives in the "dial-up" phase: You have to go out of your way to use it. But someday, this won't be true. Even die-hard crypto haters will be using it to swap airline miles without even knowing that Southwest issued an ERC20 token for Rapid Rewards - they will just "use the app." To that end, going out of your way to find interesting projects or fascinating NFT use cases or whatever you find along the way ... that is where the future is. In this sprawling wonderland are the nascent embryos of the next Amazon or Google or Apple or eBay. At some point, we won't be surprised when the first state goes to "digital deeds" that have NFT's as an ancestor technology. It is just going to happen much as the Internet happened: It will be purposefully novel for a while, and then it will just happen in the background. And if we invested in the right ideas along the way, who knows? Maybe we can change money ... and governance ... and social fabric ... all of it.
i don't think crypto should be "in the background" in the manner you describe, you don't need NFTs to manage a centralized database, you really really don't it's a terribly inefficient way to run a database. bitcoin brings complexity up front and brags about it. i'm a fan of giving people the tools and education to decide for themselves in the use cases where it matters. not everything needs a blockchain.
And yet ... we still experiment with "governance tokens" and art and CryptoKitties Collectibles and quadratic funding. Most of the things we try, much like Internet-connected toasters, will flop and be forgotten (sorry, CryptoKitties), but new technology is predictable in only one way: That many of the ways we use it 10 years down the road won't have occurred to us, yet.
Also, check out dokidoki.finance 's UX. "Pixelated Retro Japan" is their asthetic. On purpose.
Jaxx was one of the first multi-coin wallets.. we had to make a lot of decisions. Company mandate was frictionless access to your non-custodial wallet. If TheDAO wasn't cancelled there would have been a fantastic leap in innovation.
I'd suggest that the next leap, imo, is to build a multi-DAO voting structure with multi-network NFTs (with visualizers etc.), and have it all accessible within a "wallet". That'd be pretty crazy.
governance via protocol / app is inherently problematic - Polybius documented this three millennia ago. seems like humans operate in cycles. perhaps... kyklos cycles... muahahahah!
Good work, but as a finance professional enthralled with the crypto/defi space, i could use a little help now and then just to keeping us with the tech heavy utility of it all. Not my skill...beginning to regret that now.
fair points on how everyone needs to be apart of redisigning the system...and maybe i just have to pay my dues, but there is room for more UX. In the end, don't we want crypto to be superior in everyway...cheaper, faster, more secure, more accessable, less energy consuming...and easier too?
Meltem...it is messy now and that is ok, but if we want $100K then we know we have to work on our color palet just a little bit.
100 points for not saying "mental model" in this article. just needed a break. Thanks
I've only recently discovered you're genius on twitter and I think you're on a roll!
The design is exciting me. Weird AF but I'm always coming back for me. Badgers, Unicorns, Chefs and Pickles all challenging me to get the meme, ape in and yield my yield. Loving it. I was rug-pulled hard in 2018 by a crypto arbitrage robot and someone selling me a lite version of bitcoin. LOL! I can't believe I am still around for this shit, but honestly it's dope compared to my booooring interactive brokerage account or the old school loan shark I asked for a mortgage.
YOLO. Crypto is here to stay and I am riding this wave all the way to the beach where I'll built a Hundertwasser-style Citadel with 21 Million windows.
As a 25+ year UX designer and a new comer to crypto space, i find this space very complicated. Crypto mass adoption won't happen unless the average joe can actually use this stuff. Current environment is copied from trader screens and terminology. Average Joe does not understand any of these, nor he should. Companies need to invest in extensive user research and understand the mental models on Joe's head. A lot of work needs to be done in order to simplify these products, not to mention engineering flaws as well. I wonder how many of these compaines actually employ UX researchers and has a budget to invest in usability tests and user research. I think products that are built on lightning has the potential to bring mass adoption and they should be designed that way.
First, make it good enough to be a viable alternative product with ease of entry and adoption. Second, redesign to change user behavior and disrupt the industry.
Nice piece. Yeah, the UI is a bit to absorb, but I am thinking an app, that could also access the camera, starts pricing on the fly in Sats. Problem is, 8 places right of decimal. Bitcoin needs a pricing layer that simplifies the representation of price/value. Numbers are numerous D) and with so many digits, makes it tougher to comprehend. Compare with current currencies, 2 plcs right of decimal, maybe 4 in some market applications. Sounds silly, but think about it. Hey grandma, the oatmeal that used to cost 2 bucks, well that is now 0.000041 or 41 Sats. I suppose it would be too provocative to use $ to represents Sats. Guess that can wait till then next cycle.
Love the point about Defi design space. Thanks!
Back in the 1990s when we started a company that was intended to bridge the gap between art and industry (Conchsense) - our web designer thought I was insane to want buttons that didn't fit the web standards of the 1997. Square buttons with text and drop shadow. I wanted shapes that morphed into new pages when you hovered over them that would disappear unless you clicked while on the shape. We were early (and young and inexperienced)and I allowed my team to convince me that I was being too revolutionary for our intended users - but as it turned out, having a website at all turned out to be too revolutionary for most of our users and clients - so at this point, I think we should have pushed the envelope - worst case scenario would have been the same result.
I recently posted a thread on "intention to use" much along this vein. When was the last time you remember "dialing into" the Internet? It was long ago, right? Now it is everywhere and always-on and we just use it without thinking like electricity or running water. A "Netflix" button is on every new TV remote. Crypto still lives in the "dial-up" phase: You have to go out of your way to use it. But someday, this won't be true. Even die-hard crypto haters will be using it to swap airline miles without even knowing that Southwest issued an ERC20 token for Rapid Rewards - they will just "use the app." To that end, going out of your way to find interesting projects or fascinating NFT use cases or whatever you find along the way ... that is where the future is. In this sprawling wonderland are the nascent embryos of the next Amazon or Google or Apple or eBay. At some point, we won't be surprised when the first state goes to "digital deeds" that have NFT's as an ancestor technology. It is just going to happen much as the Internet happened: It will be purposefully novel for a while, and then it will just happen in the background. And if we invested in the right ideas along the way, who knows? Maybe we can change money ... and governance ... and social fabric ... all of it.
i don't think crypto should be "in the background" in the manner you describe, you don't need NFTs to manage a centralized database, you really really don't it's a terribly inefficient way to run a database. bitcoin brings complexity up front and brags about it. i'm a fan of giving people the tools and education to decide for themselves in the use cases where it matters. not everything needs a blockchain.
And yet ... we still experiment with "governance tokens" and art and CryptoKitties Collectibles and quadratic funding. Most of the things we try, much like Internet-connected toasters, will flop and be forgotten (sorry, CryptoKitties), but new technology is predictable in only one way: That many of the ways we use it 10 years down the road won't have occurred to us, yet.
Also, check out dokidoki.finance 's UX. "Pixelated Retro Japan" is their asthetic. On purpose.
Jaxx was one of the first multi-coin wallets.. we had to make a lot of decisions. Company mandate was frictionless access to your non-custodial wallet. If TheDAO wasn't cancelled there would have been a fantastic leap in innovation.
I'd suggest that the next leap, imo, is to build a multi-DAO voting structure with multi-network NFTs (with visualizers etc.), and have it all accessible within a "wallet". That'd be pretty crazy.
governance via protocol / app is inherently problematic - Polybius documented this three millennia ago. seems like humans operate in cycles. perhaps... kyklos cycles... muahahahah!
Good work, but as a finance professional enthralled with the crypto/defi space, i could use a little help now and then just to keeping us with the tech heavy utility of it all. Not my skill...beginning to regret that now.
fair points on how everyone needs to be apart of redisigning the system...and maybe i just have to pay my dues, but there is room for more UX. In the end, don't we want crypto to be superior in everyway...cheaper, faster, more secure, more accessable, less energy consuming...and easier too?
Meltem...it is messy now and that is ok, but if we want $100K then we know we have to work on our color palet just a little bit.
100 points for not saying "mental model" in this article. just needed a break. Thanks
Bravo!
Omg, you’re great!
Hit me up; when you visit kwest.
Lance 305-395-1852
100% Meltem!
I've only recently discovered you're genius on twitter and I think you're on a roll!
The design is exciting me. Weird AF but I'm always coming back for me. Badgers, Unicorns, Chefs and Pickles all challenging me to get the meme, ape in and yield my yield. Loving it. I was rug-pulled hard in 2018 by a crypto arbitrage robot and someone selling me a lite version of bitcoin. LOL! I can't believe I am still around for this shit, but honestly it's dope compared to my booooring interactive brokerage account or the old school loan shark I asked for a mortgage.
YOLO. Crypto is here to stay and I am riding this wave all the way to the beach where I'll built a Hundertwasser-style Citadel with 21 Million windows.
As a 25+ year UX designer and a new comer to crypto space, i find this space very complicated. Crypto mass adoption won't happen unless the average joe can actually use this stuff. Current environment is copied from trader screens and terminology. Average Joe does not understand any of these, nor he should. Companies need to invest in extensive user research and understand the mental models on Joe's head. A lot of work needs to be done in order to simplify these products, not to mention engineering flaws as well. I wonder how many of these compaines actually employ UX researchers and has a budget to invest in usability tests and user research. I think products that are built on lightning has the potential to bring mass adoption and they should be designed that way.
.... well, not so average Jane has no issues so maybe Joe needs some help from her?
He definitely needs help ;)))
First, make it good enough to be a viable alternative product with ease of entry and adoption. Second, redesign to change user behavior and disrupt the industry.
Nice piece. Yeah, the UI is a bit to absorb, but I am thinking an app, that could also access the camera, starts pricing on the fly in Sats. Problem is, 8 places right of decimal. Bitcoin needs a pricing layer that simplifies the representation of price/value. Numbers are numerous D) and with so many digits, makes it tougher to comprehend. Compare with current currencies, 2 plcs right of decimal, maybe 4 in some market applications. Sounds silly, but think about it. Hey grandma, the oatmeal that used to cost 2 bucks, well that is now 0.000041 or 41 Sats. I suppose it would be too provocative to use $ to represents Sats. Guess that can wait till then next cycle.
the shift to sats will happen at some point, agreed. 1 sat = 1 penny will be a great psychological milestone for bitcoin.