Please describe your proposed solution.
[reference 1 - Meaningful Brands - 12 year study]
Slide:19, sum of personal (32%) and collective (29%) benefit percentages.
Source: Havas Group, n=350K+
1 - How you perceive the problem you are solving
Introduction
This proposal seeks your investment to launch the Social Design Academy and start helping communities and brands become a force for good using UX3.0 training.
We close the gap between web2 and web3 by designing digital conversations instead of pages, creating a social layer across legacy systems and Cardano.
Blockchain gives us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design Software for the people by the people. But our current wallet software separates utility and education, creating barriers for people to enter and trust the crypto space and partake in meaningful use cases.
Catalyst has its challenges. To effectively work with people you might never have met before, and break out of discovery talks only, we need a new approach to our way of working.
We need a new social design approach turns everybody into a designer, unlocking the power of our human potential through cognitive diversity.
New UX 3.0 method & Social Design Instructors
Last few years, I designed new Social UX tools that brought me closer to the vision of developing Software that has positive impacts on our daily lives. But I must admit, I have been trying to put this on the Catalyst agenda since Fund2 and resources are running low. Rethinking systems using Design Research takes a lot of time and packaging these outcomes for a larger audience are two different things. That why I ask for your investment to launch the Social Design Academy.
To assist people in their Cardano journey, we must upgrade how our Communities and Brands interact with their audiences & clients. We must elevate the repetitive, harsh, static page-based Software using UX 3.0 in which we transition from 'Designing for convenience' to 'Designing for wellbeing' using engaging digital storytelling. Humane software asks people what they need instead of telling them what to do. At Social Design Academy, we are mindful of what we build with Blockchain in our social live classes.
"Together, we design a new category of Social Apps that deliver personal and collective development goals using Story-based Chat Assistants. " - NK.
With your investment, Social Design Academy launches a new UX3.0 program that turns communities & brands into forces for good. [Check our SDA budget and roadmap]
Let's discover these new perspectives together.
> 2 - Your reasons for approaching it in the way that you have;
Most of us have seen the slide in Catalyst Townhall once or twice; "Catalyst disorients, overloads, and inspires." The decentralized nature of the space causes adverse effects, mainly because people don't know where to start or progress, often reaching out to family, friends & Social Media for help.
**The Functional/ Strategy Perspective*
Page-based interaction design for the web is getting old; we need to rethink the front-end UI for Blockchain to unleash its full potential. Why? Pages are passive and reactive; they don't pro-actively inspire and encourage people to join the Cardano ecosystem.
Social Design Academy focuses on distributed software design (we also call it real social software). Redefining how we build distributed software doesn't happen overnight and needs some serious unlearning and relearning, we develop and streamline what and how we make by capturing design research, having live classes and re-imagening what software can do for us as humans.
Social Design Academy believes in coordinating live classes and workshops around distributed software that compounds in a Conversational UI Toolkit leveraging bright minds in the Catalyst, Cardano, and broader software development space.
By rethinking how we design and develop our front-end and node-systems together, we can not only create a bridge between our web2 and web3 worlds; we make the web fun and meaningful again. By using moral imagination, we deliver true social impact. 🔥
Everybody can join collaborative our design workshops, we turn people into civilian design thinkers and doers.
> 3 - Who your project will engage, or who its stakeholders are;
Social Design Academy is already engaging with the Catalyst & Cardano community daily in our Discord and by having weekly live classes that use these new design tools like; UX reviews, Pain & Gain Personas & Experience mapping. And from July '22 forward we want to intensify our online events.
Niels Kijf is Social UX Advisor for Consenz and provides the Cardano ecosystem with new design tools to find product-market-fit, of which Emotion Mapping and Pain & Gain are the most effective. Design with emotion, not for emotion, is a core Social Design Principle and simplifies how we connect with our audiences.
In our latest workshop, we concluded that the new Ideascale proposal template triggers anxiety and stress—[Reference 6 - Emotion mapping] Our Proposal Assistant will be an iterative design research to show novel proposal writing processes using the distributed collaboration mindset. [Reference 7 - Design research Chat Assistant for Cardano].
'If you don't design with your customer, you are not designing for your customer.'
To boost our outreach, we coach Social Design Instructors that using Social R&D tools within communities & brands co-create experience maps [Reference 8 - XP map example] that are self-explanatory, stress-free, and meaningful. Together we unlock the true potential of Cardano using our new Social Design tools and Story-based Chat Assistant techniques.
> 4 - How will your project be implemented?
Visualise to Realise; We can do it!
Catalyst is missing Iterative Design Circles, UI design groups that engage and encourage blockchain communities with mockups, fresh ideas, and directions by showing UI designs for Digital Governance solutions. Using modern design tools, we get people excited about design, and by asking for feedback on social media, we show people potential directions.
In my almost 25 years of experience as a Digital product designer, people get excited when you show potential approaches and directions in UI design mockups.
People become creative, asking questions like: "Is this also possible? Did you think about this?" This shift the mindset from seeing obstacles to creating a yes-and environment for future design iterations.
We train social UX basics in our live classes [Reference 9 - RSVP Channel] and excite people through loom recordings discussing design. We democratize and humanize our software design, a mission with only winners. [Reference 10 - De-colonize Design thinking.pdf]
Social Design Academy wants to step into the Civilian Design Space using the following Japanese proverb;
Tell people, and they Forget,
Show people, and they Remember,
Involve people, and they will Understand.
> 5a - What you will produce (i.e., your outputs)
Monetize Digital Storytelling
By co-designing UX 3.0, together with the Social Design Academy Pitch/Co-investor deck, we engage with Communities & Brands with a new Social Appstore concept. Monetizing Digital Storytelling in new Social Apps outside of the walled gardens will drive adoption for the Cardano Ecosystem, as our world is in desperate need of new hope narratives.
Our Proposal Assistant will be used as example project in our Live classes. From September onwards we will bring these topics to our live-classes and partners, while I button up F6: In-wallet Onboarding for ADAholder, before Sept 1st, 2022. Learning and building together is our core philosophy, as we believe unlearning and relearning in groups work best.
We make Communities & Brands Blockchain Ready™ by introducing a new way of developing their business client interactions using Story Based Chat Assistants. Instead of social media creating our world views, we are transforming our phones into remote controls for our reality.
Doesn't that sound refreshing?
For our complete approach, check our Budgets, Milestones, and design program, see our SDA budget/roadmap and program spreadsheet.
Production Overview
Stage A & B - Social UX & Digital Storytelling Workshop | Gitbook Instructional Materials WIP
Through Social R&D, we are co-producing two workshops: Social UX & Conversational Interaction Design that redefine how we ideate and co-design real social Software using our distributed software mindset. These workshops use Miro boards & Discord as communication tools. [Reference - Levels of participation.]
Stage C - Design Culture & Governance
We will create a social design tool, governance schematic, and personal & collective development goal worksheet.
- Asses your current design culture by by placing your heart in the Triangles of Trut
- There is more to governance than voting; Co-creation as governanc
- We create new worksheets that help set up personal and collective development goal
Stage D - SDA Live classes / Workshops | Gitbook Live classes WIP
We guide and train communities and brands to develop mesmerizing Social Apps that boost personal and community development goals. We believe looking inwards and outwards is the answer to true social impat, because system change is a responsibility of us all. D1 - Has a focus on Proposal Assistant (Inward focus) and D2 focus outwards on Social Apps for communities (outward focus.
Stage E - Social R&D - The Future of UX | Gitbook WIP: Social R&D | Design research documentation
We believe in the power of collective genius, and by training SDA instructors, we can scale our new software design approach within the Catalyst, Cardano, and broader software design communities. By logging our findings in our Design research documentation, we create one source of truth for our Social Design Academy members.
Stage F - SDA Presentation Miro Board | Gitbook WIP
Upon completing the instructional materials, we need to create a concise SDA Pitch that promotes UX3.0, resulting in new Use Cases through Digital Storytelling on Cardano. A sponsor/co-investor deck [Rough version here] already has a ton of community feedback; master to reduce (Remove 50%) turns this material into a solid Pitch deck.
Stage G - SDA Website Project Website | Client website (In development) | Gitbook WIP
The last part is bringing all this together by upgrading our current project-based website, into a personal / brand-facing website, with pages for our core tools, solutions, and services, making Social Design Academy ready for launch in March'23. (Not not worry, we give live lessons all to way there.)
> 5b - What will happen as a result of your work (i.e., your outcomes).
Our workshops and instructional training enable communities and brands to compound true social impact through Digital Storytelling, resulting in a new category of humane Software.
The outcome of our work;
- We help Communities & Brands define their personal and collective development goals, giving them more clarity on their Social Impact and helping them attract people into their communities.
- Our Conversational Interaction Design approach has created a novel way for Communities & Brands to engage with their audiences by developing new Social App
- By co-designing a Conversational UI Toolkit, we redirect our energy from software delivery to value deliver
- We promote brands that are in the process of becoming a force for goo
- By creating the Conversational UI Toolkit with partners*, we want to leverage what we can build on the Cardano blockchain.
* We are currently talking with LITTLEFISH, ADAO, HANDSHAKE, and KONMA as production partners for this Cardano UI Toolkit. We hope other communities join us in this exciting digital storytelling journey, making Cardano streetwise and the Social Impact chain of choice.
> 6 - Explain who will benefit.
The delivery of this project benefits the Catalyst, Cardano, and broader software development communities as we venture into the world to create a bridge between our web2 and web3 world using a humane software design approach.
'Together we stand, Divided we fall.'
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Social Design Academy addresses the Dapps, Products & Integrations Challenge because:
- We see a strong alignment with Cardano's and Social Design Academy's mission: "Build Together" & "Future Realities Today," as we both want to be a force for good, driving meaningful use cases and adoption.
- By training individuals and meaningful brands in building personal and collective development goals in game-like Social Apps, we drive adaption through education.
- Our Exercises make it easier for self-steering groups to drive adoption by effectively working together.
Charles pointed out that UX is the biggest Onboarding driver for Catalyst/Cardano in his keynote for Fund9.
Challenge link for quick access:
https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/campaigns/26595/about
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
Risk - Coaching SDA Instructor to boost our reach.
As you can see in the budget [Reference 2 - See our budget/roadmap and program spreadsheet. the more significant chunk of money is for Live-classes and to coach UX 3.0 instructors, as we don't currently have the man/women power to fine-tune the educational project and tailor directly to external clients.
We mitigate this risk by co-designing these materials to onboard more people in our co-production team and coach SDA instructors, enabling us to have outreach potential.
In the future, we want to create education as a service license. Together with Social app revenue, we fund a professional-grade curriculum for our youth and provide the accompanying Social Technology Stack for Digital Conversations.
Risk - A new way to approach user interaction.
Because of the new nature of Story-based Chat Assistants, we need specific knowledge and Motion UI front-end skill. Because Conversational Interaction Design is a new front-end UI approach for Blockchain, but re-imagining pages into conversations simplifies things considerably, because the dependencies are less complex.
We coordinate with production partners and use our Social R&D tools to learn and build together using the user experience perspective. We are taking away risks because many eyes, expertise, passion, and way of working come together in our Live classes.
By co-designing with our Partners, the Catalyst, Cardano, and Broader communities, we incorporate honest feedback captured in social design sessions, fine-tuning the design tools and instructional materials even further.
> The best way to learn is to teach and iterate. We consider social design a peer review method for iterative UI design, removing the churn we experience in Catalyst today.
Risk - Lack of research / live class participants
In web2 it's often hard to find research candidates or participants, but the web3 community is earger to learn, participate and provide feedback.
We concur with the finding of Oliver/IOHK, especially #2 about finding participants.
"The community is supercharged! There’s no shortage of interest to gain #UX insight. I used to struggle finding users willing to participate in feedback but in web3 it’s the opposite. We even actively test analysis methods to gain insight from the sheer volume of feedback." -OE
We also have low to no cost to find participants because of cross-promotion in Discord and partner servers. Growth is also not our key driver at the moment, small groups that can use and provide feedback on our materials is really valuable at this stage, and people can learn new UX3.0 approaches in return.