Digital leather
Summer is in full swing, and we had some really hot days this week making it a bit difficult to focus here and there. Still, got a few things done and participated in a variety of good discussions.
Most importantly, the first use page is finally live 🥳🍾🎊🎉. Next up is a revision of the security page that I started this week (PR here) and then the privacy page. Looks like we'll also need to add a new page for settings. Doesn't sound essential, but settings are a hodge-podge of options that are referenced throughout the rest of the application. Some of the backup and security options are presented to users during first-use. Fee settings are relevant when funding and sending. Having settings organized well has a bit of a clarifying effect overall.
While working on all these pages, I am also refining the UI Kit. That's coming along well, but just takes time. I stumbled across Figma Components, which lets you copy & paste Figma elements from a website into Figma designs. Did not realize that was possible, but could be something to add to both bitcoinuikit.com and bitcoinicons.com.
Calls this week were super varied:
Our biweekly Jam session going deep into manual backup for lightning wallets
A call with Niels from Wallet Recovery NL and Mo to learn from his experience helping people recover bitcoin wallets.
Kick-off call about bitcoin & lightning business models
Crit call about the bolt.fun vote button (you vote with sats)
A call to prep a usability test for the design sprint around Blixt (not uploaded yet)
And in a little bit another call about user stories in research
Really nice to see all these efforts happening and I hope I can help move things along a little bit.
Needed a little bit of a breather on Thursday and made this silly leather wallet design. The discussion of whether "wallet" is the right term keeps coming up regularly. A conversation that I don't find particularly useful, but it was fun to go with the leather wallet metaphor for a moment and go skeuomorphic.
Something I did not get enough time for this week has been the preparation for COSCUP. The panel is organized, we just need to record next week. But the presentation still needs a lot of work, iteration and practice. That recording also needs to be done next Friday, so I'll have to majorly prioritize this.
And a random thought at the end. Do not have an "advanced mode" in your application. I've seen this discussed in various projects over the years and it is not a good solution. A user cannot know which one is appropriate for their needs. Instead, create a default happy path and allow users to customize settings as they go, in context. I assume that I will have this discussion a few more times in the future.
Have a fantastic weekend ☀️