Developing a novel product/service is a long process involving many. What if there was a place for developers, scientists, designers and consumers to exchange in ways that benefit both them and the project?
DESIGN
The following questions informed all UX decisions:
Can everyone go to, see and do what they want in few clicks?
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Is a user’s position in relation to the whole project-lifetime process communicated effectively?
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There are 3 personas the website caters to:
Is a user’s position in relation to the whole project-lifetime process communicated effectively?
There are 3 personas the website caters to:
1) With a toolkit but without a cause: I want to work on something I find meaningful, but don’t know where to look
2) With a cause but with an incomplete toolkit or map: My project is held up by something I don’t know. I know someone somewhere knows the answer and is willing to help.
3) Supporter/learner: I want to support and learn from those working on interesting and meaningful projects, but don’t know where and how.
1) can check early submitted projects in “vote”, and on-going projects in “Review”. Can also network through community events/workshops and forum.
2) can submit a project proposal via “Projets: Submit”, or post specific questions on “Community: Forum”.
3) Can check “Projects: review” and “funding”, as well as browse “Community: Forum” and “Events”.
2) With a cause but with an incomplete toolkit or map: My project is held up by something I don’t know. I know someone somewhere knows the answer and is willing to help.
3) Supporter/learner: I want to support and learn from those working on interesting and meaningful projects, but don’t know where and how.
1) can check early submitted projects in “vote”, and on-going projects in “Review”. Can also network through community events/workshops and forum.
2) can submit a project proposal via “Projets: Submit”, or post specific questions on “Community: Forum”.
3) Can check “Projects: review” and “funding”, as well as browse “Community: Forum” and “Events”.
VISUAL DESIGN
To capture the complexity of the process / platform, I’ve created illustrations, renders and diagrams to facilitate both internal and external communication.
![Owning the DAO Token, then populating a new profile with credential. The smaller figure with a ring represents one's digital identity]()
![A group of users from various disciplines]()
![A team of users, with various credibility scores, submit a project proposal to the DAO for review and voting.]()
![The DAO community vote with their tokens on proposals they find meaningful / important. The top three are filtered and move on to the next phase]()
![Illustration showing various disciplines contributing to a project. "DeNature" comes from the process of denature a protein, but the prefix "De-" also represents decentralizations (of work, of fund contribution, etc)]()
DISCOVERY
Crowdfunding enable people to develop a product with little upfront cost, since it only goes into production if there is enough demand (the funding goal is met).
We explored the additional challenges of developing a product, even pre-kickstarter:
- technical feasbility. crowdfunding platforms have varying degree of vetting and this review is internal. DeNature can allow anyone - including backers/funders - to write a review on what they are experts on. This community driven transparency helps both troubleshoot issues in advance and reveal design opportunities.
- Having the right team: some passion projects never make it to these platforms. DeNature could also be a space for various disciplines to meet. For example a computer scientist can meet a designer to work with, or a scientist can find manufacturing engineers.
We aimed to facilitate exchange among the following personas:
With a toolkit but without a cause: I want to work on something I find meaningful, but don’t know where to look
With a cause but with an incomplete toolkit or map: My project is held up by something I don’t know. I know someone somewhere knows the answer and is willing to help.
supporter/learner: I want to support and learn from those working on interesting and meaningful projects, but don’t know where and how.
We are a team that understands the value multidisciplinarity brings to the table: whether it is lab-meetings, design ideation sprints, troubleshooting and problem solving. There is plenty of anecdotes and literature about the value of novel perspectives yet crowd-sourcing, crowd-learning and crowd-funding platforms remain fragmented. We explored the space of Decentralized Science: a movement looking to streamline the process of scientific research, funding, publishing, etc using blockchain technologies. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) can play a role by providing a central currency that can stand for non-monetary exchanges or accounting (eg contribution, merit-based credit system).
We explored the additional challenges of developing a product, even pre-kickstarter:
- technical feasbility. crowdfunding platforms have varying degree of vetting and this review is internal. DeNature can allow anyone - including backers/funders - to write a review on what they are experts on. This community driven transparency helps both troubleshoot issues in advance and reveal design opportunities.
- Having the right team: some passion projects never make it to these platforms. DeNature could also be a space for various disciplines to meet. For example a computer scientist can meet a designer to work with, or a scientist can find manufacturing engineers.
We aimed to facilitate exchange among the following personas:
With a toolkit but without a cause: I want to work on something I find meaningful, but don’t know where to look
With a cause but with an incomplete toolkit or map: My project is held up by something I don’t know. I know someone somewhere knows the answer and is willing to help.
supporter/learner: I want to support and learn from those working on interesting and meaningful projects, but don’t know where and how.
We are a team that understands the value multidisciplinarity brings to the table: whether it is lab-meetings, design ideation sprints, troubleshooting and problem solving. There is plenty of anecdotes and literature about the value of novel perspectives yet crowd-sourcing, crowd-learning and crowd-funding platforms remain fragmented. We explored the space of Decentralized Science: a movement looking to streamline the process of scientific research, funding, publishing, etc using blockchain technologies. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) can play a role by providing a central currency that can stand for non-monetary exchanges or accounting (eg contribution, merit-based credit system).
DESIGN (2)
Some describe DAOs (Decentralized autonomous organization) as a chat group with a shared wallet. A DAO is a technological boundary for a group of people, that often form around common interest or cause, that enables the use of virtual tokens for identity, participation and payment. It is like a mini economy, except the tokens can do more than be bought and sold: they can translate into voting power, they can embody membership in a sub-group (eg a “developer” token can be different from a “designer” token).
Designing a DAO is analogous to laying the infrastructure for social coordination: one can create a currency for voting, exchanging value (like $), accounting for exchange of insights (like upvotes on reddit). Since we hoped to facilitate the building of projects for a range of stakeholders/users (scientists, designers, funders), the complexity of the various needs makes it ultimately a UX puzzle. Since DAOs are very novel tools, there is no rulebook, and no effective way to define or describe them since they are context specific.
The popular/dominant DAOs at the time involved owning their token for membership, and very few went beyond being functioning as investment DAOs. Participating in action or decision in the DAO involved voting mechanisms that determine a member’s impact on the vote using varying rules.
Our approach was to converge towards rewarding the members providing value with the native token as closely as possible to the moment it is provided, and charging those who are provided value / setup a structure to recieve value (Eg a proposal on which members can give feedback). For example, those who provide critical feedback during projects are rewarded tokens from a pre-set wallet setup during project proposal phase.
I also wrote about what I learn from (and about) being a co-founder working in a small team. Read my short blog post.