#75 Visions of peaches
Yes.
Let’s start with some thoughts on design & dev collaboration. I’ll just state what I think works well:
Developers are part of the design process from the start, so they can continuously provide feedback. They can also better plan out what’s needed to built in the end
Designers ask lots of questions about what’s possible, how things will be built and work
Designers and developers intuitively understand the possibilities and limitations of the medium they design for
Responsive design, interactions, and animations are considered during design
Design and technical prototypes are done to validate ideas quickly before they are settled on
Developers ask a lot of questions and don’t quietly accept designs provided to them (sorry, seen this so many times)
There is a clear understanding that the design is to be implemented precisely, and not to be loosely interpreted. If there’s too much room for interpretation, solve it in design first (designing is planning, done well it simplifies development a ton)
Goal-oriented iteration and lots of back-and-forth is better than trying to get it right with one shot
Everyone regularly uses the thing being built and tries to make it amazing instead of spending too much time in their comfort zone toolbox
Just quickly wrote those out, there’s probably a lot more to be said, but this is a quickly-write-and-don’t-look-back type of newsletter, so there we go.
We spoke a good amount about the Bitcoin Core App design docs in this weeks call. It’s pretty much been me maintaining them as we go along, with the others mostly referring to the Figma file directly. Not the most exciting work to update docs, but I think it’s fundamental for a project like this one, where the goal is that it will be around for a very long time. Establishing a clear design philosophy, approaches & patterns, and documenting decisions and progress, will be very helpful over time as contributors come and go, questions arise, we forget why we did certain things, etc. I believe it’s referred to as institutional knowledge. Anyhow, the docs are still young and will hopefully receive tons of changes and updates as we go, and gain in relevance. In a way, it could be seen as a reference design similar to the Daily spending wallet in the design guide, but for the base layer.
The Peach design review this week was really nice. Great group of people, great product. I hope they’ll be around the community and that we will get to observe their progress as the product evolves.
Speaking of calls, we had one with the Wallet Scrutiny team about organizing regular Twitter Spaces and other initiatives to reach more people (especially potential contributors). Keep an eye on Twitter, there should be one coming up next week (still needs to be announced, but the cover is ready).
And the foundation work continues. It’s too much stuff to really outline here quickly. But I see getting it set up as a big achievement for this whole Bitcoin Design initiative, and a big unlock. It should allow the community to be more effective by being able to identify and support design initiatives in just the right ways. It requires more planning, a clear vision, broader and deeper involvement, and lots of operational effort. But, it will be awesome.
On another note, I pushed a small update to Nosta, making the follow recommendations during profile creation dynamic. Was very simple, as there’s a handy API that provides all the info. And I found some bugs along the way that will have to be squashed next. This is part of the Nostrasia hackathon, which started this week. Legends of Lighting Vol 2 kicked off yesterday. Go get your hands dirty if you have a bit of time.
Alrighty, time to wrap it up for the week. Sunday evening, I’ll sit down and plan for next week. Some interesting calls coming up around the foundation. Then let’s see if I can push an update to Bitcoin Icons out. Always lots happening, just a matter of prioritizing and planning and fitting things nicely into that calendar grid.
Make sure to check out the latest Bitcoin Design newsletter and the weekly updates by Mo and Honeybadger.
Have a good weekend.
🍭