Designers, Toasters & Blockchain

There is a whole parallel world developing, a whole new world where many say banks, lawyers, Facebook, Google and even governments will no longer necessarily decide how we live without us. In this world we see the promise of decentralisation, a promise that is made possible by cryptography, game theory and distributed ledgers. It is also a world almost entirely devoid of designers.

Welcome to the world of blockchain, a world known primarily by cryptocurrencies. But this is just scratching the surface of what is involved. We've all read and seen the stories of the Bitcoin millionaires and the ICO scams, but this is a bit like saying the Internet is only porn and spam email. Just like the birth of the Internet in the early to mid 90's, it is abjectly dismissed by many and worshipped without question by others. Regardless, it is now here and already affecting how our world works by providing an alternative. The world of blockchain is offering us an alternative to just about everything, but most importantly to governance models of how everything from money to the law work. That is to say, it provides us a way to help decide the future of how it all works and who's in charge.

The problem is its severely complicated. Most people using cryptocurrencies don't actually understand how they work, just that it goes up and down. Many of those selling the dream can't explain Byzantine Fault Tolerance in less than 300 words. It's a daunting world that can make your head spin.

There just may be an answer which can help unleash the full potential of this world to the masses by helping explain it and make it useful. There just may be an answer in design .

As we all know, you can't just sprinkle a bit of design on something and it’s all sorted out. It takes work, lots of hard work. For us in the blockchain (web3) design community, it takes even more work explaining first to ourselves how it works, and then to others.

It is a matter of toasters and microwaves. With which can a person heat bread without instruction? Which is the clearer? Which requires less explanation? Which has the quicker benefit? This is the metaphorical world in which we find ourselves in web3 design. We're using microwaves, when people need toasters.