Lots going on with Saving Satoshi at the moment. I had to catch up this week and get the design for chapter 3 in a good shape, so we can start development soon. In chapter 2 (which is in QA), we made the mistake of not planning the challenge logic enough ahead of development start, resulting in UI changes half-way in. So I tried to be super thorough here. And this chapter really needs it as it delves into various aspects of mining. Coding is so much easier when the application logic is thoroughly thought through and defined before. There are some aspects of Saving Satoshi, namely the scripting challenges, where I am not best suited to finalize all the interaction polish. I just don’t know what a coder would come up with when writing a hash function. But with other parts, like the mining simulation in chapter 3, I can take it quite far with some of my own research and help from and discussions with the team. After I shared this video, several more issues came up that we’re currently working through. Very close to having a polished experience here.
Image generation also took a lot of time. Midjourney tells me I’ve now generated 2,550 images. It’s a lot of fun, but can also be frustrating when it’s simply too stubborn and won't respond to your prompt directions in the way you’d like. But it’s a randomness machine, all you can do is try again in a different way.
Goal this week was just to get some nice shots of nemesis Thomas Vanderpool. It’s a pretty specific character. Mr. Copy Guy describes him with the words “southern gentleman, plantation, generous, old-timey, charming, old-style, white suit, loquacious, folksy, genial, warm, inviting, genteel, chivalrous, colloquial.” I finally got something with a complex multi-step process using multiple tools and feeding generated images back into it with different prompts. Still going to need a bunch of manual work in the end. Really nice to tag-team on this with Mr. Copy Guy and Yegor now.
The card game decks arrived. Quality could be better, but perfectly fair for the price and quality we went for in this initial experimental print. I played it with my son and it worked out pretty much as expected - easy to learn, simple and fast to play, highly collaborative. And of course, a ton of design and bitcoin concepts are mixed in. Now let’s see how the response is at BTC Prague.
I also enjoyed the design review call with the Damus crew. A very central project to Nostr, and it’s impressive how well put together the design process is for being so early, moving so fast, and it being based on voluntary part-time contributions.
Writing-wise, I started a draft for a Wallet Selector page for the guide, about inter-app payments UX. And also did a final review of the Building in Public copy for the UX Research Kit. Still need to think of some images for it though. Post BTC Prague, I really need to get back to the guide.
Next week will be about final prep for BTC Prague, putting together the slideshow for the expo booth, some print-outs, my own presentations and various organizational things. For the Bitcoin Core App, I also want to see if we can come get consensus on a tighter project plan moving forward.
Shout-out to all the builders.
🫶🏼