What’s Next for KOY Tech: Improving the User Experience of Blockchain Financial Systems
What’s Next for KOY Tech: Improving the User Experience of Blockchain Financial Systems
It’s been more than a month since we initially announced our partnership with the KOY Network team, and since then a lot of exciting developments have taken place. In this update, we’ll get you caught up on all the latest technical developments that the GoodBlock team has been working on, in order to make the user experience on KOY Network as seamless as possible.
Before we get into things though, get caught up on what KOY actually is in our last three articles to learn all about how KOY Network plans to bring accessible financial technology to communities across Africa:
- Part 1: KOY Network Partnership & Impact
- Part 2: KOYN Tokenomics Innovations
- Part 3: KOY Technical Infrastructure
Keep reading to learn about the ways that GoodBlock is building KOY Network tooling for mass adoption.
Improving the Web3 Login & Account Recovery Process
Because a large demographic of KOY Network’s user base will be rural populations with lower digital literacy, it was important that the account sign up process be as easy as possible for the end user. At the same time, we didn’t want to make accommodations at the account level that might sacrifice security for user funds. Considering that KOY Network will be used primarily for government currencies and needs to comply with local regulations that protect the end user, it is important to make design choices that mitigate potential loss of funds. When it comes to Web3 tech, balancing ease of use with secure design is always a challenge, but we believe we’ve found what’s best for mass adoption.
A key piece to the improved user experience is a super easy sign-in process that will provide the option for either a Web2 or Web3 login. Users can use the same sign-in process across all tools and 5-character account names make it easy for anyone to remember and communicate their credentials for sending and receiving funds.
In order to ensure that user funds are kept safe, GoodBlock has developed a unique system for account security. First, private keys are generated within a secured, enclaved server that’s impossible to export. This means that no one, not even the KOY Network team can ever see anyone’s keys. Of course, advanced users or those coming from a Web3 environment also have the option to add their own predefined keys. Even when going that route, the KOY Network system and team will never be able to see what your keys are.
In keeping with the theme of a seamless user experience, the system has been designed in such a way that if you lose your key, you can still log in, but no one can see the key — not even you. If users believe that their account has been compromised, they don’t need to recover their private key — instead, they can simply generate new public and private keys to replace their previous keys. This is thanks to the unique features in Antelope tech that allow end users to reissue new account keys.
Designing a Block Explorer that Makes User Privacy a Priority
While leading the Telos Core Developers in 2022, Douglas Horn had initiated the design and development of the first open source block explorer in the Antelope ecosystem, called Open Block Explorer (OBE, affectionately known as “Obie”). To best align OBE for mass adoption, the KOY Network team worked in conjunction with Detroit Ledger Technologies to implement an easier, more attractive, and highly featured new version.
A key pillar of this design process was data privacy. Although it is a standard experience in Web3 environments for all of a user’s account information to be public for anyone to access, this is not the case in other types of financial tooling. Users coming from a Web2 environment rarely like the realisation that all their information is publicly accessible to anyone with access to a block explorer, which presents a strong barrier to entry. Additionally, because one of the KOY Network’s purposes is to serve as a financial network for government-licensed digital currencies, the project needs to comply with mandates and regulations of various countries, which would not allow this type of information to be stored in the open.
With this in mind the team is implementing its unique design to overcome these barriers. Key account information, like transactions, is stored on the blockchain, so that there is a public ledger. However, personal information is stored in another system that is associated with each account. A unified, permissioned API for all KOY Network tooling allows access to this mix of public blockchain data and private user data. Crucially, users control permissions to see their own information, but not the private information of others. This means that users can have an immutable ledger of their balances and transactions without that becoming public information to everyone else in the world.
These permissions will be extendible to other parties at the option of the account owners, and within the laws of each nation where KOY Network operates. With this in place, the block explorer will soon filter information and show the end user both their private information, as well as the publicly accessible information.
While these design choices may not be appropriate for public blockchains, they are the perfect solution for KOY Network. KOY Network is different from other blockchains in that it’s not a blockchain looking for use cases. Rather, it’s a pressing use case of African financial inclusion and advanced data networks for business that uses blockchain as a key component of the problems it solves.
It’s not enough to build technology that is designed to be accessible on the back-end; the front-end is in many cases the most important part to spend time on when it comes to improving the user experience. This is why GoodBlock is putting together an integrated platform of interfaces that will tie all of the features of KOY Network into a seamless application.
The application will be available as both a web app dashboard, as well as a native smartphone app for Android and iOS. The smartphone app is particularly important as smartphones are one of the primary ways that countries across Africa access the internet. The interface will have a social media feel to it, with a distinctive social avatar associated with each account. This will give users a way to identify themselves without making personally identifiable information public.
Any app on KOY Network can utilise these avatars to give them more personality and make the whole experience of interfacing with blockchain technology more accessible. Other gamification features will follow including optional badges, friend lists, messaging and account metrics aimed at solving problems around trust with largely anonymous accounts.
“This is the social-forward, mass adoption-minded blockchain interface that I have been wanting to implement for years,” says Horn. “In 2019, I designed a wireframe for a system like this that we can now finally offer real users. Once fully released, it will incorporate a number of user experience innovations I worked on along the way but haven’t had the opportunity to build into real products yet.”
Technical Innovation Continues to Flourish on KOY Network
Technical innovation and user experience remain at the core of KOY Network’s development. We’re committed to delivering a seamless and secure user experience while complying with regulations and preserving user privacy. Our journey is far from over, and we invite you to learn more on the KOY Network site and join the KOY Network Telegram community. Stay tuned for future updates and news by following GoodBlock on social media.
Join us as we pave the way for a more inclusive financial future with KOY Network!
GoodBlock Technologies develops apps and networks to support better access and greater autonomy for computer users worldwide, with a focus on solving real world problems. Some of our solutions include koy.network, decide® Voter app, and dstor.cloud. Learn more at goodblock.io.
KOY Network is a distributed ledger system designed to support smartphone apps serving Africa and its diaspora situated across the globe. Learn more at koy.network.
GoodBlock Website: https://goodblock.io/
KOY Network Website: https://koy.network/
Open Block Explorer: https://explorer.koy.network/?network=koyn
Social Media:
KOY Network Twitter: @KoyNetwork
GoodBlock Twitter: @goodblockio
dStor® Twitter: @dStor_cloud
decide® Voter App Twitter: @decide_Voter
Medium: https://medium.com/goodblock-io
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/goodblock
Telegram: t.me/goodblocktls
Originally published at https://goodblock.io.
