An open-source Bitcoin UX research proposal (status: DRAFT)
The main objective of this research is to answer fundamental questions about the people using Bitcoin that will guide future design and development of user-centered solutions. It is my belief that working and getting right the very foundations of this technology will be a key factor in the posterior addition of new levels of complexity when building on top of it. As a desired outcome, we’d have the insights produced by this project to influence and be integrated in the collective effort of the Bitcoin Design Guidelines.
As a reference for a more concrete expectation from this research, we can have as a reference my previous work on the Lightning UX research (https://patestevao.com/work/lightning-network-ux-research/). The crucial difference to notice is that, since this new proposed research should count with funding, we’ll be able to center the research insights around the experience of real users instead of just heuristics. Besides, of course, the subject of study being Bitcoin as a whole and not only the Lightning Network.
The key broad research questions that we want answered are:
- What are the customer problems behind Bitcoin usage, i.e., what motivated people to use it in the first place?
- What are people’s main goals in their Bitcoin journey?
- What are the main struggles that people find in their Bitcoin journey?
As for more specific questions, we can divide them into two groups.
- On the general perception of Bitcoin:
- Are people’s expectations correct about what Bitcoin can provide them or are there too many frustrations and disappointments caused by the lack of conceptual knowledge? What usually are these expectations?
- What are the pain-points on the “global onboarding” for Bitcoin that we could solve? Here, we are referring as global onboarding the process of acknowledging Bitcoin’s existence and trying to make a first contact with the technology (searching online for information, trying to make a first purchase, etc).
- What are the most common customer journeys for “Bitcoin onboarding”?
- How technically savvy Bitcoin users usually are?
- On Bitcoin interfaces:
- Are the current patterns used in Bitcoin interfaces clear for users?
- What are the main struggles they have when operating Bitcoin software?
- What are some opportunities to improve?
- How does a Bitcoin interface performs with someone who’s relatively savvy with other technologies but not Bitcoin? This second group of questions will be approached from a more broad perspective of how people interact with Bitcoin, as this research is more focused on human aspects. Therefore, we'll not get into too many technical details about design patterns and user interfaces.
General methodology and outcomes: This research will be conducted using multiple user research techniques, including but not limited to remote user interviews, user testing sessions and surveys. During the research period, we'll follow a transparent position torwards the community with our ongoing efforts, and will have as final result a written report including the process, insights, customer journey maps and low fidelity wireframes. The possibility of having research recordings publicly available will still be evaluated depending on privacy agreements and the participants disposition.
During the research planning, we’ll identify the best approach to choose participants, aiming for a range of people who have a close relationship with Bitcoin, to those with no current knowledge at all. We acknowledge that there will be limitations in reaching people from multiple cultures, but we'll also make an effort to overcome language boundaries through translation services. Also, we’ll take the opportunity to reach out to open source projects and get their own input of which questions they’d like to have answered in order to improve their solutions and consider those when delineating the detailed research outline.