Barriers to Blockchain
Blockchain technology affords us some amazing opportunities, but it also causes some issues. This is how we will approach them.
The Acorn Collective is a truly global crowdfunding platform. We will be using blockchain technology to help founders and startups find access to funding.
As Head of User Experience (UX) at The Acorn Collective, I wanted to share how we will be approaching the design of the Acorn platform.
In my first article, I gave a brief introduction to the guiding UX principles that we have come up with to help us ensure the platform is as usable, accessible and pleasurable for everyone who comes in contact with it.
In this series, I will discuss each principle in the context of a challenge that we will face when building this new product.
Barriers to blockchain
Blockchain is a fundamental part of The Acorn Collective. It is the core around which we are building a truly global platform. This offers us some great opportunities and it’s tempting to try and crowbar everything we can because… well… blockchain!
Instead, we have the principle of problem first, solution second.
We start by understanding the problem and the people who it affects. Only then can we begin to discover how we can solve it.
The problem of payment
Tokens, wallets, exchanges. These are all well-understood concepts to many of us, but for the majority, these make little to no sense.
Do your parents understand blockchain? They may do — they may have only read some scary article in the press. We need them to be able to back projects as easy as a super knowledgeable crypto-fanatic — easier in fact — as they will likely have less patience and willingness to learn something new.
So our vision is to find a checkout and payment solution that means the user doesn’t need to know that cryptocurrency is involved at all.
It should be as easy as checking out on Amazon.
This will bring people into the cryptocurrency world by osmosis.
I believe this is the way that crypto will eventually win over fiat. Not by convincing people that they plough their hard- earned pounds, dollars, rupees, into an exchange but by offering genuine value that happens to have blockchain behind the scenes.
One day they are backing an interesting crowdfunding project. Next week they pay someone abroad via blockchain because it’s cheaper. Next month they send a relative send some cash via a wallet as a gift. Next year they hand over a crypto credit card in their local supermarket and they are receiving their salary in ETH.
The problem of perception
As I say: I believe that Acorn will be a positive force in bringing new people into the crypto world.
But for now ‘cryptocurrency’, and ‘blockchain’ are scary words in articles illustrated with an image of men using laptops in dark rooms wearing balaclavas.
As Gandhi said “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”
Crypto is currently at the ‘fight you’ stage.
So we need to make sure we communicate the benefits of the Acorn Collective without scary and confusing terminology.
I don’t really fully understand how my bank stores my money. When I get paid how does it all move to my account? When I pay for something how does my money get to them? Most people don’t know and frankly, don’t care.
Our aim should be offering value and building trust. How the mechanism grinds in the background should only be of concern to our clever developers.
The problem of pace and price
One of the major issues of blockchain technology is that transaction speed is slow and expensive.
This will get better over time but at the moment we have to be realistic about what is technically feasible.
That’s why we need to consider if blockchain is the right solution to every problem. It definitely is perfect for some things, but let’s keep it for the areas that need it most.
Those things are mostly going to be matters of transparency and money. In other cases — such as ‘what did this person post today’ or ‘what is that message someone just sent to another’ blockchain is an expensive sledgehammer to crack a nut.
As long as we provide something that is easy-to-use, quick and secure we can reserve our sledgehammer to smash the really big barriers.
The solution — Problem first, solution second
This brings us back to the guiding principle of ‘problem first, solution second’.
Our first goal is to identify problems, our second to understand them and finally to solve them.
We have a tried and tested process to design products. This includes methods such as the ‘double diamond’ (or more accurately triple diamond) that help us define, discover, ideate and finally pinpoint the best solution.
We have design and development loops that make sure we test and refine our work. Everything is set-up to ensure we’re solving the right problems in the best way.
For every opportunity that blockchain technology creates, there is a hurdle that we need to leap.
We need to make sure they are the right hurdles and our solutions improve people’s lives.
