It looked like a nice tool. I'll probably end up reluctantly using it in the coming year since lots of companies don't really want to invest in research at all because doing human research is expensive. Automating it is going to feel like a good business decision.

As we make this transition as an industry, though, I just want to sigh a quiet swan song for "empathy."

"Empathy" was an up-and-coming concept when I started my career during the headier days of "human centered design." While it eventually lost its precise meaning as industry buzzwords tend to do, some of us continued to take it seriously. Here is the definition of the word:

Empathy: /ĕm′pə-thē/
noun
The intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person. Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.

The term started gaining popularity with designers because people started believing that to design something well for someone, you need to understand them.

Apperception
verb.
The process of understanding new experiences by relating them to past experiences, it involves conscious awareness and the integration of new information into our existing mental framework.

In other words, it wasn't about simply answering questions that could be devised in a lab. At its core, the focus of design research is not to gather data—it is to transform the designers. It is a process of apperception: they're resetting their biases (or, at least, altering them) so that they can start understanding what makes a design good in the mind of someone else. This empathy is cultivated through two practices at the core of design research: immersion in new environments and open-ended conversation with users.

"Design Research" as a practice developed as a way for designers (product managers, engineers, and others who were building things) to learn about the contexts and people they were designing for. As it evolved, people started believing that actually "getting out of the building," spending time in these environments and talking to people helped build empathy.

As a practice, design research is important.

However, we need to recognize that something key happens when an organization creates this as a distinct role, then splits people into the roles of "designer" and "design researcher." Suddenly we have put a layer in between the builders and the people they're building for.

We can think about empathy as a liquid flowing through a pipe from a user through the process of design and production to an end product (service, policy, etc...). Every time there is a joint in the pipe, some empathy leaks out and less flows through to the end product, policy, or service we're designing.

When we begin to separate "people who talk to users" from "people who build stuff," we start adding kinks in the pipe.

Yes, the industry does need a few experts, and projects often need a dedicated design researcher to organize the research plan, but this role should be more of a tour guide coordinating the research—not the one doing the research by themselves: Empathy comes from experience, and experience comes from time, personal connection, and immersion. If the builders don't do the research, the empathy will not flow through.

We probably ended up here because "empathy" is hard to measure. It is easier to measure the number of users that someone in the organization talked to, and the number of user tests that someone ran, etc.. etc... We can put these numbers on a powerpoint deck and all feel like we've done our diligence.

...and who knows, maybe someone on the product team will see those numbers, and maybe they'll decide to let one of those numbers or one of those insights affect some of their decisions. But they'll have no context for why those numbers say what they do, and they'll have very little reason to believe them.

The designers won't be very good, either. Good design comes from designers who ask "why," and then find answers. With a leaky empathy pipe, those questions will go unanswered. It is hard to design things of quality without a holistic understanding of context, so we'll probably just go with our gut anyways.

An organization that does research to "check a box" will be more efficient if it just hires some dedicated researchers to do it. Or maybe some consultants?

Probably more efficient.

From there, it is a short hop from there to an AI interviewer, an AI bot that synthesizes the results, and an AI that boils down a summary of the outcomes into some bullet points that we can read in an email.

More efficient.

We've come full circle, at this point, product managers, engineers, and designers can operate the way they did before the "empathy" period: they'll get some notes from marketing (or, now, an AI bot), and then they'll try to build based on those bullet points. Maybe it will be good enough?

For a lot of things it will, and the costs will go down, so that will make the organization happy.

There have been so many things with new technology that gets me excited about the future of research. Things that make the process of finding research participants, juggling schedules, transcribing audio files... all of this could be vastly improved.

However, we need to be careful to distinguish between activities that support research (like those above) and the purpose of research: immersing the builders to build empathy. If we're depriving the builders of the rituals that build empathy, are we really improving anything?

For my part, I typically work as a "hybrid" strategist, designer, and researcher. I'll continue to place a high value on human interactions with research participants because I believe it makes me a better designer. For as long as I can, I'll be using new technology to increase the amount of time I spend talking to people (by reducing the time I spend on tedious tasks).

It won't last forever, but we'll see how long it lasts ...but I think that some of us will look back romantically at the time when we believed that empathy could be part of the design process. When we really thought that context and conversation were a part of bringing beautiful things into the world.

Today many of us are grappling with new AI strategies. As patients become accustomed to interacting with AI in other aspects of their lives, they will expect healthcare to evolve accordingly. However, AI-oriented healthtech companies need holistic data-pictures of patients to create these personalized experiences—how can the industry evolve from this portals-and-pdfs world into the data landscape that will power the AI of the future?

A fragmented data landscape will be a barrier to healthtech companies that want to deliver next-level AI-driven experiences.

The future winners in the healthtech space will be those that switch to a paradigm of health data management that focuses on integrated coalitions over siloed databases.

For a model of opportunity in the health-tech space, we can look to the analog healthcare world: integrated healthcare models.

In an “integrated care model” a team of professionals—such as general practitioners, therapists, nutritionists, social workers and other specialists—work together with a holistic understanding of their patients to develop personalized, coordinated treatment plans.

Integrated health-tech experiences will work in similar ways. Users will continue to look to their nutrition apps for health plans, online therapy providers for their mental health regimens, and general practitioners for their basic test results, but will expect each of these specialist humans and apps to be informed by more holistic data pictures of their health. These holistic data-pictures will only be possible if each healthtech experience provider is sharing data in an interoperable way.

As competitive UX strategies increasingly rely on personalized ML-driven experiences, holistic data-pictures of individual customers will grow in importance.

However, this integrated model is exactly the opposite of conventional wisdom in the tech industry where exclusive data ownership is seen as a competitive moat.

AI-first companies with a traditional, data-hoarding mindset have two options for acquiring enough data to feed their AI models: 

• ‍Direct interactions with a user which require a lot of engagement to build a holistic data-picture of a user. This feels awkward, invasive, or cumbersome if users have to input too much data in each app.

• ‍Sharing data through partnerships which require high cost (in time and money) to secure partnerships and build connective APIs. 

These options might be feasible for big tech companies like Apple or Google which control enough touchpoints to completely saturate a user’s life, but even rivals the size of Microsoft, or Samsung will struggle to collect enough data for highly personalized health experiences. 

Where does that leave a small or medium specialty healthtech app that simply strives to provide the best experience? The alternative is to band together.

As a broad movement, proponents of “web3” are working toward an internet that gives users ownership and control over their data. For healthtech companies, a third—more integrated—approach emerges:

• ‍Join an ecosystem of healthcare apps that gives patients control over their data in a way that is easy to connect with new apps. This lowers the cost of access to a more holistic data picture of patients and facilitates streamlined experiences for users.

In this paradigm, health data is stored in a digital health vault controlled by the user. The user provides access to the apps with the most compelling value propositions, and receives a more personalized experience in return.

This vision requires innovations in data protocol development, security, and UX patterns. Web3 communities support ecosystem-oriented solutions by creating:

• ‍Social structures & standards such as common data structure protocols and industry agreements that support ecosystem development and growth. 

• ‍Technology Infrastructure that makes these new paradigms possible, such as distributed, encrypted databases, digital signature and privacy preserving technologies, blockchain-based accounting and more.

A handful of web3 communities are already working on healthcare-specific protocols. Many of these communities are still in their nascent stages, so healthtech companies that want to get involved could play pivotal roles in shaping the evolution of these standards.

If you’re a part of a healthtech company, consider whether a web3 approach is right for your organization. To get started:

• Bring the Web3 conversation into the strategy room. Be realistic about whether your company can compete with a data-hoarding strategy. If not, investigate web3 business models to see if it is the right fit.

• Find the right coalition. Go to conferences and talk with leaders in other organizations to see where your org will most benefit from the collaborative community.

• Contribute. Web3 organizations often give resources to open-sourced protocol development as a way to influence their design. Consider whether your organization could benefit from collaborating in these communities.

‍

The healthtech space is already extremely competitive. Future winners will need to move past traditional data silos and create AI-driven, bespoke experiences fueled by accessible data. Web3 coalitions will offer a new way for specialty healthtech apps to compete by contributing to a more integrated ecosystem around individual users and their data.

This article was written by me (Kyle, nefko.xyz) and originally published to the Guidea Studios blog. I've worked with Guidea several times, and I highly recommend reaching out if you work in health tech (tell them Kyle sent you ).
Guidea is an expert in helping healthtech companies evolve their experience strategies in a changing landscape. Contact Guidea to talk more about the shifts that this could mean for your own organization.

Speculative Design is a storytelling exercise where we create stories with realistic personas and realistic products to think about the future we could build together.

In this piece, I'm thinking about web3 social DApps that could replace Linkedin. Specifically, I'm thinking about how we could drive adoption to them. I use myself as a prototypical evangelist, and think about four different personas that I interact with in my professional life.

Each Vignette includes:

• Who the persona is that may adopt a Web3 Linkedin solution,

• ...the situation that they would be introduced in

• ...how the technology works, and

• why it might drive adoption.

The apps I mention are fake—it is easier to talk about ideas than real organizations in speculative design, but the next phase is to get real about who would do what. I'm very excited about the concept of a Web3 version of Linkedin, and so far have tried out a few Linkedin Aspirants:

• Entre: https://joinentre.com/profile/nefko

• Braintrust: https://app.usebraintrust.com/talent/66077/

• Kleoverse: https://kleoverse.com/nefko

• Distrikt: https://distrikt.app/u/nefko

As of this writing, none of these aspirants are that useful, but I'm hopeful they'll grow better in the future. They're social platforms, so "usefulness" comes less from features than from community. Their success depends on an awkward catch-22: they need more users to be valuable, but how do you drive adoption if you don't have that value?

In that vein, I wanted to add a bit to the discussion. I am a professional UX researcher, strategist, and designer, so I know how valuable it can be to get good feedback and ideas. Hopefully these thoughts here can be a positive contribution.

Broadly, the content below is focused on key things that would promote adoption on these platforms. It is a selfish desire: a Linkedin Aspirant is only valuable if my professional network is there. Critically, I don't want to build a network from scratch there—I want to somehow convince people in my existing network to move over. This isn't easy, and I think it'll take a coordinated effort from all of us to make it happen.

The easiest "early adopters" are people like me—I work in web3 and believe in the vision. However, I just got back from my third conference of the year and used these Linkedin Aspirants ZERO times to connect with people I met at the conference. Let's talk about why.

I don't want to get too broad with critique of existing apps, but I do want to mention one thing that is super important since this is web3 and people have this weird tendency to try to put "tokens" on everything: The right people don't care about your tokens. The value is the relationships.

The right people don't care about your tokens. The value is the relationships.

I've seen several interfaces with the theme of "Fill out your profile and get 10 points." This gamification bullshit doesn't work because "points" aren't the reason people come to social networks—especially professional social networks.

The points I care about are US Dollars in my bank account. I get them when I make professional connections with people who will pay me real money to do real work. Teams working on web3 professional apps don't need to spend time coming up with elaborate token schemes. That time is better spent understanding how people build and maintain relationships using professional social networks.

Below I'm going to write a bunch of "vignettes"—short stories about how I would help onboard people to a Web3 version of Linkedin. Note that none of this stuff has anything to do with tokenomics or gamification. It has 100% to do with relationships—making personal connections and deepening them so I can win the real game: work on cool projects with cool people and make money doing it. Not stupid "tokens" (or points, or whatever).

Speculative Design is a storytelling exercise where we create stories with realistic personas and realistic products to think about the future we could build together.

The DApps that I'm mentioning here are all fake. I am real—nefko is my handle on most social apps, and Kyle is my name in real life. The personas below are based on real people in my life, I've just changed their names.

I am a freelancer, so I am VERY dependent on Linkedin. I almost never apply to job posts—100% of my contracts the last few years come from people in my network. Sometimes I meet them at conferences and a project emerges. Other times they are people I've worked with in the past at different companies. Most often, my clients are referred to me by colleagues I've worked with in the past.

So Linkedin doesn't help me "grow" my network, it helps me maintain and communicate within my network. Specifically, it is a:

1. Rolodex: It helps me keep track of people I'm connected with. Professional relationships are different from personal ones. If I have a personal friend that I haven't talked to in 8 years, chances are that we've moved on in life. However, a colleague that I worked with 8 years ago may still be very relevant to my work today.

2. Signaling mechanism: When I have some room in the pipeline, I let the people in my network know so we can start having early conversations. Posts work well for this. It is really nice because 2nd-degree connections can see those posts and then they can ask my colleagues (the 1st order connections) for a referral.

3. Trust Base: I signal that I'm a good consultant with a few key things: recognizable logos on my resume and testimonials from past colleagues/clients. As an individual contractor, testimonials are HUGE and I've collected a good number of them. I copy and paste them onto my website or into a pitch deck, but the place that they "live" is on Linkedin. Linkedin gives me a great interface to request a testimonial from someone, and others can trust that the testimonial is real because it is linked to that other person's profile.

Let's look at 4 different personas that I interact with today and what I would need a web3 aspirant Linkedin to work. These are based on real people in my network, I've just changed their names.

1. Webster the Web3 Entrepreneur. Webster was a client of mine earlier this year. I met him at a hackathon and later helped him with some design work on his early-stage product.

2. Connie the Conference Goer. I've bumped into Connie at a few conferences now. She is a potential collaborator, client, or connector to other clients. We also share a lot of professional interests, so I like to keep up with her thoughts on the industry.

3. Jamie the Junior Designer. Jamie has less experience than me, so she may be a great sub-contractor if I end up scoping a larger job with a client. I also play a mentor role with people like Jamie from time to time. She is also a part of a 100 person Telegram group that is all aspiring web3 designers—a rich pool of people for me to connect with.

4. Tula the web2 agency designer. This year, I've gotten MOST of my work from Tula. She isn't in the web3 space at all, but I've worked with her for years and her small company pulls me in as a sub-contractor for work often. She doesn't know anything about web3.

I would love to get all four of them to use a web3 Linkedin solution.

To illustrate how this could work, here are some DApps and things we may think about. All of these are fake and they have dumb names because this is just a story:

• Professional Network Identity Protocol (PNIP) - A light layer on top of other identity protocols that has an agreed upon structure for things like Testimonials, Resumes, connection types (worked for, reported to, was a client of, etc...), and other professional-network must haves.

• Resum3 - A DApp that is full function, but focuses mostly on editing and rendering profiles (resume information, testimonials, etc... similar to Linkedin profile pages)

• Workstr33m: a DApp newsfeed-style DApp that filters Lens, Farcaster, and other web3 streams that is optimized for work content.

• Testimon.io - a streamlined web experience for creating tesimonials.

• Connectr - a mobile DApp with a super streamlined interface for making connections in real life via scanning QR codes.

• PeopleNote - a part of the PNIP that enables me to take notes about people connected with that only I can see.

These DApps are storytelling devices. There is no reason that an app couldn't combine all of these functions, and I'm sure that there are product teams out there already thinking about these in part. I'm hand-waving the tech a little bit because my skills are actually in design, but if you're an engineer and want to set me straight, I love to learn (Feel free to put some time on my calendar).

Here are the stories of how I get Webster the Web3 Entrepreneur, Connie the Conference Goer, Jamie the Junior Designer, and Tula the Web2 Agency Designer all onboard a (fake) protocol called Professional Network Identity Protocol (PNIP) with a suite of (fake) apps.

Webster is the CEO of a funded, alpha-stage DeFi wallet company with about 3 people (including him) on the team. I've done about 4 short contracts with him when he needs design work, and we regularly keep in touch about when more contract work is needed.

Webster is very active in web3—it is actually through him that I learned about Farcaster. He is young and likes to try new things, and as a builder himself, he really understands how things need to fit together. As a CEO, he is constantly making connections with people.

Since I'm closing up a year with several months of work with Webster, I recently asked him for a testimonial (future clients like to know that past clients were happy, and I really want to have more clients that look like Webster).

Keep in mind, Webster is a web3 CEO, so the conversation would be VERY different from Tula, which I'll come to later:

Nefko: I'll send you link to Testimon.io, it is a super easy way to put a testimonial on my Resum3 DApp. I'm using that as a replacement for Linkedin. It is optimized for professional relationships like Linkedin, but it works across the most popular web3 social protocols so it is all on-chain.

Webster: Nice, so I can us it with my Lens handle?

Nefko: Yeah, or Farsighter, DeSo, some of the other ones. It connects to your social identities, but it uses a light protocol called PNIP for things like testimonials, structured resumes, etc... That makes it nice because there are several DApps in the space that are optimizing for different experiences. One is really great for finding jobs. One is more oriented on a newsfeed experience (but only for professional stuff). Another DApp has a really cool group-chat experience that is specifically for work topics, but they all support a common Professional Identity Protocol that is linked to your other web3 social identities.

I send him a hyper link to a really light-weight web-based app that enables him to write a testimonial and sign it with his wallet. He choses the option to spin up an account and just names himself for now and links it to his Lens handle. In the background (of course) the testimonial is an NFT with a standard structure.

Of the DApps that use Professional Identity Protocol, I can see that there is a new Testimonial NFT from Webster. I toggle it to display on my profile. (An important part of these NFTs is that you need two signers for them to display publicly—one from the sender and one from the receiver, so we can cut down on spam or malicious shit-talkers).

Since Webster signed up with his Lens handle, he can also see whether there are others in his network that he wants to follow on the Professional DApps. Lots of people in his Lens network are friends and family, so he doens't follow them on the Professional DApp, but he adds the people he has worked with in the past, some VCs that he has gotten funding from etc... If they haven't made accounts on Professional Identity Protocol, he can send them an invite.

There are several important factors.

(1) I already have a professional relationship with Webster, and he is happy to help me out. HOWEVER, there are limits to what I'll ask of him. It is important for both of us that we're investing our time and attention in something that will have value over time. So (2) the experience for him to write the testimonial needs to be a very low effort. More importantly, none of us want to spend time on something that may not reach critical mass. Because in this scenario (3) the DApp is connected to multiple existing (and growing) identity protocols, it is believable that the testimonial will have longevity (even if one of those DApps dies off). It is also important that it is all of them because if Webster prefers Lens but another one of my clients prefers DeSo, I need it to work with both of their preferences.

I met Connie at the last conference. It was great to talk to her, we were part of a breakout session on a really nerdy topic, and out in the hallway after the talk we decided to connect so we could keep in touch. Not only to I like talking to Connie, but she works for a company that is a pretty decent size and she's connected with a lot of other people in the industry. There may be an opportunity for us to work together in the future, or there may be someone in her broader network that may need a freelancer.

We did the awkward "connect on what?" dance before she pulled out her telegram QR code and I scanned it with my camera. Then we started that little ritual of planting seeds so we could remember who each other are...

• I copied and pasted an "about me" blurb into the conversation from my Evernote app that had links to my website and Linkedin.

• She took a selfie of us and then dropped it into the chat.

• Then I sent another message that was awkwardly overly specific "I really enjoyed our conversation about account abstraction and the challenge of the ways that Ethereum addresses lack a pre-pending standard so that....[blah blah blah]"

Will it work?

I dunno.

I've met, like, 50 people at this conference. I hate using Telegram for this because it is structured like a messaging app and not like a professional profile app. Professional profile apps contain useful information about people (profiles) and mechanisms for surfacing that info at opportune times (such as Linkedin's "open to work" feature, or the ability to post on a feed when you're looking for a collaborator). Telegram has none of this, but we used it anyways because the QR scanner is good and fast. It also doesn't feel (for some people) like as big of a commitment as adding someone on Linkedin may be.

The Connectr DApp is a super light-weight mobile app that helps people easily connect. It was actually built by a handful of different companies working on Professional Network Identity Protocol (PNIP) who agreed that a full-featured PNIP profile app like Linkedin's app would be amazing, but expensive and hard to build. The Connectr App gives people the most important features of a mobile app for making connections quickly.

I've got it loaded up on my phone top and open it about 20 times a day when I'm at a conference. I'm at the Ethereum DevConnect conference, and I've used the PeopleNote settings to automatically tag people I connect to with a "DevConnect 2023" tag. Nobody can see this tag but me, but later on it helps me stay organized with people I connect with.

I pull it open and Connie scans my QR code which opens her own Connectr app. The app prompts us to select a connection type, and we each set "acquaintance." We can see a few aspects of each other's PNIP information, and if we opened a more full featured DApp like Resum3, we would see all of the information.

In that moment, I use the Connectr App to add a few more tags (that only I can see) about Connie, then I hit a button to send her a message. That pops open my preferred messenger for PNIP connections (Converse) and I send her a message over the XMTP protocol (she receives it on whatever her preferred messenger app is).

Connie's friend Frensa also wants to connect, but she doesn't have a PNIP profile yet. When she scans the QR code, it offers her the option to download the Connectr app or continue on a browser. Connie and I convince her that the app is worth it and tell her about it as the app is downloading.

Connie: Yeah, the great thing about it is that it is built on PNIP, so it is already integrated with whatever identity solution you're using—but it isn't utter chaos like Telegram.

Nefko: Yeah, I also got the Resum3 app, which is really clean Linkedin-like profiles. I really do like how it helps me keep up to date with what people are up to and send them messages. I also hate news feeds, so I don't have to worry about that stuff.

Connie: Oh, no way! I love the newsfeed. I have Workstr33m set up and I check it every day.

When Frensa's app is done downloading, she opens it up, creates a screen name, and we scan to connect to her. She immediately connects it to her Farcaster profile, but mentions that she'll have to wait till tonight to connect Lens because her Lens ID is on her hardware wallet which she left in the hotel.

Later that week, I see that she's filled out her professional profile.

It seems like every time I go to a conference someone has stood up some shitty web browser thing that uses an NFC scanning card that makes me build a profile on another website that I'm going to loose in a slew of browser tabs and immediately forget the name of.

As a key entry point to the PNIP ecosystem, it is key that (1)there is a simple QR-based mobile app that isn't buggy and works even when the internet is sketchy because of there is crappy venue wifi, foreign SIM cards, or finicky VPNs. It is also important that it (2) is fast and handy to find the QR code—people do different things in different contexts, so an interface not fit with the user's goal in that moment creates a bad experience. The Linkedin interface is very feed-oriented, but when you're trying to connect with someone the QR code is important.

Most importantly, (3) the app can't be a throw-away brand that people don't recognize. Most people have hundreds of browser tabs open on their phone, so browser experiences simply get lost and forgotten. We're all exposed to hundreds of new logos, protocol names, etc... at a conference and it is hard to keep track of it all. By having an icon on a phone top, Connectr and the PNIP become top of mind and memorable for a user, and by (4) having it obvious that it connects to a broader ecosystem like Lens, Farcaster, or DeSo in the background makes it feel like it has substance.

Finally, (5) it is important that users can get in the door quick and establish profiles later. This is important for two reasons. (5a)One is that it limits procrastination—if I have to fill out a whole profile or connect the right wallet or whatever, I always tell myself that I'll "look into it later," then I forget and move on. Establishing the connection first and quickly means I'll have something of value (a connection to a real human being) which is a reason to come back.

The other reason (5b) is that the more people I connect with, the more valuable it becomes for me to fill out a profile. If I download the app, just put in my name, then connect with 12 people in my breakout session, I now have an app with 12 valuable connections. When I'm riding home in the taxi that night or sitting on the toilet or whatever, I'm more likely to fill out that profile because the value has been pre-loaded. I got the value up front, now I'm willing to put in the work. (Remember, the value isn't in some PNIP Points scheme or token thing—the value is that I have an opportunity to share information about myself with people that I want to have relationships with).

Jamie is so cool. I met her at a small conference a few weeks ago. Whereas I work at the "Senior" level (I have about 12 years of experience), Jamie is just starting her career which means she bills at a lower price point and is building the skills that I was working on a few years ago. For me, it is great to connect with people like Jamie because if I land a client project that is too big for me, I can hire people like her as a sub-contractor to help out.

Of course, in this business, people are always in and out of full-time jobs, etc..., so I don't really need to know ONE Jamie, I actually need to know a LOT of Jamies. I also need to know some specialists like visual designers or motion designers that I can learn from and also maybe bring in for a little work when a client needs a specialist. So when Jamie told me about a web3 UX design group with around 100 designers in it that sounded awesome.

...then she told me it was on fucking Telegram.

Telegram is a chaotic mess. I won't go into the UX problems here, but suffice it to say that Linkedin has been designed from a UX perspective to be a professional connection platform and Telegram has not. Today what usually happens is:

Join something on telegram → get overwhelmed with notifications → Turn off Notifications → Completely forget about the telegram group.

It's not a good cycle.

Literally a few minutes ago a former colleague messaged me on Linkedin trying to find a Webflow designer. I don't do web flow, so I posted in Telegram, and someone in the big group responded, but now I have to figure out if I should connect them on Telegram or Linkedin or Email... there are downsides to each)

I tell Jamie that since this is a professionally oriented UX designers group, it would be awesome if they used GroupChatt3r* instead—it is like Telegram, but it connects to web3 social protocols. GroupChatt3r also has hooks for PNIP identities, so she can set a setting on the UX Web3 Designers group that requires users to create a PNIP identity when they join.

*I just made this up, but it seems like I learn about a new web3 chat app every day, so I'm sure something like this exists.

Like the QR code journey above, users only have to give themselves a handle and the PNIP is made in the background, but GroupChatt3r adds in a link to the user's PNIP profile (when you tap the link, it pops open the Resum3 app or prompts the user to download it).

This is great! These young, talented designers who are looking for jobs fill out their profiles with all of their skills, NFT proofs, whatever, etc.... They start posting content on WorkStr33m and Jamie makes an extra channel in GroupChatt3r that pulls in the posts and comments from people in the group.

It is great for me as well.

Here is the thing about people that I kinda-know-but-not-really on Linkedin: I never know whether to "connect" with them or not. I need two variables on Linkedin:

• Type of connection (if they're a colleague): Worked with, reported to, they reported to me, client of, etc...

  • Linkedin has this

• How deep is the connection? handshake, acquaintance, colleague (I'm just making these up for now)

  • Linkedin does NOT have this, you're either "connected" or you're not. It is hard to have connections with people you "kind of" know. (which plays into their business model, actually)

On PNIP, when I'm added to the group, that automatically sets a "Handshake" connection setting with these other members. It means that they can send me messages, I can make notes about them, etc... It is the loosest connection—we can kind of track and follow one another, but we haven't really worked together. This gives me the ability to fine-tune filters on feeds, fine-tune messaging settings, etc...

In my case, I spend time looking at people's profiles, making notes about their experiences and interests. I have zoom calls with some of them and track notes about their portfolio work.

Then, in the future, when work comes up that I need some help on, I post in the group and also do some DM outreach to people that I've already met and talked to.

This is really a story about pulling in groups of people to an app. I hate mass chat experiences like Telegram, but I recognize that Jamie probably likes it. I prefer profile-oriented front end experiences and "group" pages for organizing messaging.

When we're able to bridge these experiences with a common protocol, we can build communities of people even when their interface preferences are different. It also means that we can fit the interface to the session-intent. The Telegram interface is a messaging interface—it is good for group chats. It is not a great profile experience, so it is not good for searching for candidates.

Linkedin (as a VC-funded mega web2 company) has (generally) solved this problem with a really big, heavy, complicated app on desktop and another big, complicated app on mobile. They've done a good job, honestly. They have a messaging experience, a feed experience, a profile experience, etc...—a feat they can pull off because they were early to the game and have lots and lots of money.

In web3 we run these as different apps from different companies, but as long as the underlying social graph is shared, it will work wonderfully. The reason that this could work in web3 is because if you're the Resum3 (profile DApp) company, you don't need to necessarily build a chat app. You can probably just integrate the PNIP identity into another app as an add on which is more of a partnership conversation. Everyone can concentrate on building a great experience for a particular persona type or usecase and users don't have to have migration pains.

I've actually knowns Tula for 12 years now. She was a senior designer when I was an intern at my first job out of college, and we've kept in touch ever since. These days, Tula is working for a small design consultancy that has around 10 full-time employees and a handful of contractors like me in an extended network that they pull in for projects that we'd be a good fit for.

Tula doesn't know anything about web3, but she is an important part of my network. She is NOT like the others I described above—she won't use Telegram, doens't have a Lens or Farcaster handle (and has probably never heard of them), and doesn't really care about web3 values or ideology (she probably thinks that web3 died back in 2022).

However, when we think about legitimacy, Tula and her colleagues and clients are important for me. Probably half of the work I do today is for traditional Web2 clients, and I like to also get testimonials from them when I've done a good job. They're not going to offer me an "NFT" to "prove" that I've done work on their project. In fact, the main reason that I ask for testimonials from them is because the work I do is usually all under NDA, so I can't even really share it in a portfolio.

Today I just ask them for a testimonial on Linkedin. That works. But I believe in web3, so let's think about how I could get that testimonial over to web3 and—maybe eventually one day—how I could pull Tula over as well.

Tula gives me a testimonial on Linkedin (they're called "Recommendations" on that platform). Using Resum3 DApp's testimonial feature, I copy and paste Tula's testimonial text into the DApp and put in a link to her Linkedin profile. It mints a PNIP handle which is stored in a smart contract for Tula to claim later.

When someone views my PNIP profile on Resum3 or a similar DApp, the DApp hits a Linkedin API (that hopefully exists?) and pulls back her picture, name, and current title coupled with the quote text. (Would be awesome if it just pulled the whole testimonial, but they don't seem to have URLs).

A few years later when the world shifts and DApps are starting to grow in popularity, Tula decides to build a profile on Resum3. She gets the option to "start with her Linkedin profile"—a simple scraper that pulls over the data about her experience, etc...

However, in this case when she puts in her Linkedin URL and does the verification, it identifies that there has actually been a profile waiting for her this entire time. The Linkedin Verification unlocks that smart contract and the testimonial she gave me is now linked to her profile.

This is the most speculative use case, but also the most important one to think about long-term. I honestly have no ideas how Linkedin's APIs work, and I imagine it'll be a finicky mess.

Still, there is some value to this way of thinking. The most important thing is that (1) as a current PNIP user, I get to have the value of Tula's testimonial without forcing her to convert. Migration will happen in waves and the first wave will be the web3 people (like Webster, Connie, and Jamie above). We can't be an island, but we also can't pull everyone over all at once, so we have to really think about these middle-ground experiences.

There are some common threads among all of these speculative situations.

These could be another post (and I'll probably make one) but I want to pull out a few of them:

• Strategies should be mapped to inter-human interactions. It is hard to prioritize features in early stage companies. When thinking about what is most important, think about the choreography of how people meet and interact with one another—this isn't "human" centered design, it is "relationship" centered design because the value of a social app is really emergent from interactions among people. Thinking in very detailed scenarios helps us think about what features will be more important.

• Interoperability with broader web3 protocols is key. I believe that there are some data structures that are particular to professional networks (that I'm calling PNIP here), but the majority of identity management should be interoperable with other web3 identity platforms. This makes it easier (and more appealing) to existing web3 users.

• Web2.5 is still the key for now. In a social network, everyone I'm connected too isn't likely to have the same experience with web3. It is important to consider that tech savviness CANNOT be a segmentation principle for adoption strategies. Let people sign up in a web2 way and transition them slowly.

• Most people aren't anons. Most of us who work actually don't want to be anonymous. We like web3 because it liberates our social graph from the Linkedin (Microsoft) corporation, not because we want to be anons hiding behind cartoon avatars.

• No company has to own every touchpoint. In web3, your DApp does not need to accommodate every front-end use case. Focus on being a part of a strong, interoperable network of DApps rather than one big super-app. Your DApp can just focus on a great experience without having to raise billions in seed capital, and we'll all contribute to and benefit from network effects.

If we're going to reach a critical mass of users, we need to do our UX strategy together. A User Journey around a protocol may touch many different DApps. Different personas in an ecosystem will prefer different types of experiences. For a protocol to gain critical mass, we need to make sure that different teams are working to cover the different use cases and user types so that a large migration can occur.

Diversity is wonderful in interfaces, but we need the protocols to be unified.

If you've made it this far, then wow you really care about this.

I also don't know if there is already a consortium working on a real version of PNIP, so if you know of one, let me know. I'm also (obviously) naïve about how some of the aspects of the tech work behind the scenes here. I'm a designer, not a dev.

But if this topic is interesting to you and you want to continue the conversation, I'm game. As is probably pretty obvious, I have a stake in this future—it is important to my own UX strategy consulting business. I'm happy to hop on a call and brainstorm together, hack together, or (if you have the budget for it), even work on a project together.

I didn't illustrate these or really think about them deeply—it was just something I was thinking about this morning, but we could spin up figma, storyboard things out, build test apps, open conversations about standards, etc...

• You're a part of the wider tech & design industry and have been curious about the Web3 industry from afar, but find it a little difficult to differentiate the signal from the noise. You wonder if this is something you should care about.

• You're a part of the Web3 industry and you're interested in an experienced UX strategist's view on what innovation in the coming year might look like. (Some of my explanations you may want to skip past, since they're explaining concepts that you may already be familiar with in simplified ways).

• You love the idea of Web3 and are interested in perspectives from industry watchers about whether it will catch on.

• You hate the idea of Web3 and are interested in perspectives from industry watchers about whether it will catch on.

Where I'm coming from: I've been a UX researcher, strategist, and designer for over a decade, I've worked for a top design agency, early stage startups, and in-house at a couple of banks. I hold a bachelor's degree in design and a master's degree in business. I spent a lot of the past year working with the Crypto Research and Design Lab learning about the Web3 industry with a team of ethnography-oriented qualitative researchers.

I believe 2023 it an exciting time to be in Web3...

...and I'm looking forward to spending the year getting further immersed in the wider community. Web3 technology and principles are still in a nascent stage of development and adoption, so the most interesting signals to be watching for will be indicators of an industry that is maturing enough to achieve greater adoption.

Separating the signal from the (insane amount of) noise

For the uninitiated, Web3 can feel like an incredibly noisy space. This has been especially true the last couple of years as crypto prices have experienced a dramatic rise and fall, social media companies have touted "metaverse" strategies, and celebrities have bragged about the monkey jpegs they paid silly amounts of money for.

As industry watchers, it is important to distinguish between the signal from the noise if we want to understand how a technology trend may evolve to play a role in the tech stacks that make up our work. "The noise" rarely tells the important story—despite fireworks among asset prices, Web3 projects have continued pushing releases, refining usecases, and strengthening core infrastructure.

The trend in Web3 is inviting an important shift in how every-day people use the internet. Looking past the "noise," we can understand whether the industry will be able to reach the critical mass of user adoption that will trigger the shift.

Before identifying what those signals may be, it is important to iron-out what exactly this "shift" is that Web3 proponents are seeking. After spending a couple of years researching the industry, here is how I think about it.

Defining The Shift: Web3 is trying to shift every-day internet experiences away from third-party intermediaries mitigating transactions and owning of user data.

Web3 proponents differentiate the experience of today's "Web2" paradigm from their "Web3" future.

Web2 is a more centralized landscape where users submit much of their power and autonomy to large organizations—specifically governments and large corporations. Web3 proponents point to the way social media companies control and monetize user data. In recent years, they point to the ways that social media companies increasingly make data available to politicians to influence elections, censors their users for political reasons, and amass "honeypots" of data that attract hackers. They also point to governments who have been increasingly active in influencing social media company censorship indirectly, and directly sanctioning individuals in both their own countries or abroad through their control of the monetary systems.

Web3 proponents hope to offer a new paradigm where users have the ability to own and control their own money and data. It also seeks to empower people to interact in new ways with one another through censorship-resistant, pseudonymous public infrastructure rails. Most commonly, this public infrastructure takes the form of blockchains which—due to their decentralized nature—mean that they can remain resilient despite being controlled by no single entity.

The "project" is the unit of analysis for Web3. Projects may be started by individual companies, partnerships between companies, foundations, volunteerns on the internet, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) or other forms. They have goals, launch software, and try to attract user adoption.

As a qualitative researcher focused on how people use technology, I use adoption as my main metric for understanding whether "The Shift" is happening. Up to this point, Web3 projects may be numerous, but their adoption tends to center around Web3 proponents who are inspired by the ethos and principles of Web3—not everyday users with practical problems to solve. If these everyday users start to shift, then we'll know something interesting is happening that could come to affect us all.

We should consider Web3 in 2023 at two levels: [1] User experiences and [2] the industry that creates them.

As a UX strategist there are two levels I'll be thinking about this year.

The first (and more obvious) level is the broad user experience for people who use Web3 products. Up to this point, there has not been wide adoption of Web3 technologies among Early Majority users. Will that change this year? Will a killer app emerge? What will the experiences be like for it? Will the dynamics of everyday users start to tip toward more Web3-oriented experiences?

Level 1: UX Quality

How will Web3 experiences evolve for users?

These are hard questions. To begin to think about them, we need to consider a level deeper.

The second, deeper level is an industry analysis. Designed experiences are created by industries. Experiences are triggered in the minds of users based on user-facing apps. What those apps can do is determined by the technology they rest on; which is, in turn, a reflection of the industry. Industries are made up of capital, core technologies, and workforces, which sit on top of a society's economics, politics, and cultural trends.

I've argued with my Crypto Research and Design Lab collaborators in other reports, the Web3 industry is still in its nascent stage. To set our expectations about how Web3 experiences will evolve, we need to ask a deeper question: how will the industry evolve?

Level 2: Industry Maturity

Experiences are created by industries, so how will the industry evolve?

While industry analysis isn't always intuitive, it does have principles. New technologies—from machine learning today; mobile and cloud technologies of a decade ago; to airplanes in the mid 20th century or railroads in the 19th —always evolve in combination with changes in economic, political, and workforce spheres.

2023 is a perfect year to watch how will Web3's norms and institutions evolve. In what ways will it shape itself like other tech trends? In what ways will it be different?

Industry evolution is a long-term project, but we can watch for indicators.

At its core, Web3 is a philosophy and a set of technology tools that support it. "Web3 natives," the people who are immersed in the principles and philosophy of Web3, want to see a world that respects the sovereignty of individuals and enables communities to work together without reliance on centralized intermediaries.

"Web3 natives" want to evolve toward a world that respects the sovreignty of individuals and enables communities to work together without reliance on centralized intermediaries.

This is an ambitious, long-term goal. It's a goal that will require overcoming a lot of norms that determine the ways industries typically organize. That said, Web3 has attracted a lot of smart people who aren't afraid to take risks, try new things, and learn from their mistakes (and the mistakes of others).

While it is a long-term goal, we can watch for certain indicators to see if the industry is progressing. There are two larger trends that I'll be curiously watching this year.

Two Trends

The rest of this essay breaks down two large thematic trends that I'll be curiously watching this year. The first relates to the Web3 industry's maturity and ability to create quality user experiences. The second has to do with potential shifts in design practice when it relates to Web3.

These are not predictions, strictly speaking. Instead, they are things to watch—if these things manifest, it is likely that the user experience for Web3 broadly will improve and greater adoption will be reached.

A killer app that runs on Web3 will emerge. This will happen if the industry matures to a level that it is able to offer Web3 experiences that feel less techie for users.

• Adoption Signal:

  • A killer app may emerge, giving a wider cohort of users access to their first "pure" Web3 experiences.

• User Experience Level:

  • Web3 Salience in user experience will decrease, leading to smoother experiences for everyday users. This, in turn, will lead to more adoption.

• Industry Level:

  • Protocol Consolidation: A few key protocols will rise to the top and more builders will rally around them. This will lead to greater maturity of infrastructure as a critical mass is formed.

Simply put: the industry will get more mature so the user experiences will feel less techie.

Designers in Web3 will start to adopt a more "community centered" rather than "human-centered" approach. This will lead a shift from tech-first to community-first Web3 adoption.

• Adoption Signal:

  • Non-tech communities start using Web3 technologies: We will start to see a shift toward existing communities adopting Web3 technology.

• Industry Level:

  • Community Centered Design practices will become more prominant than more traditional "Human-centered" design practices.

Simply put: designers will think less about individuals and think more about how they interact in communities.

A killer app that runs on Web3 will emerge. This will happen if the industry matures to a level that it is able to offer Web3 experiences that feel less techie for users.

New technology interaction paradigms don't start to reach majority customers until a use case emerges that meaningfully improves an aspect of their day to day lives. So far, Web3 paradigms have provided no such benefits.

Trend 1 poses a question: will a "killer app"—an application that solves a real, important problem for users in a compelling way—emerge? For it to happen, it will require user experiences to improve. For experiences to improve, the indudustry will have to evolve.

[Adoption Signal] A killer app may emerge, giving a wider cohort of users access to their first "pure" Web3 experinces.

Web3's offerings are still meager. Despite being a tech-industry worker myself, I've come up with a total of zero reasons to actually use Web3 technology for anything (other than asset speculation), and I've not recommended an application built with Web3 technology to any friends or family. Not once.

A critical user experience difference between Web3 experiences and Web2 experiences is in user credentialing: does the user "sign in" with a wallet, or do they create an account? If we begin to see any use cases where a critical mass of users are starting to use a wallet to interact with an app, it will be worth watching.

What to watch:

If we begin to see any use cases where a critical mass of users are starting to use a wallet to interact with an app, it will be worth watching.

Why is this such a critical indicator? The use of a wallet is a change in the relationship between an organization and a user.

In a traditional Web2 relationship, users expect a company to manage the front-end touchpoint (a phone app, a website, a call center, a brick-and-mortar store...) and to manage their data on the company's servers.

In a Web3 relationship, users will expect the organization to manage the front-end touchpoint, but they manage their own data with their wallet.

Web3 proponents have a lot of methods for how user data can be stored, but wallets are the applications that enable people can use to keep their data their own. If we start to see a shift toward people using the wallet paradigm for app authentication, then we should take notice.

Today, even people in Web3 don't "eat their own dogfood."

Because Web3 is a core technology, we could see a "killer app" emerge from any sector—social media, gaming, money, identity, etc... Companies today in the space are trying to build Web3 solutions for all of these use cases and hundreds more, but none of them have seen any mainstream traction*

*The two obvious exceptions are cryptocurrency speculation and, in some instance, international remittances.

"Dog fooding" is a tech industry term that means "using your own app so you can taste the dog food you're trying to sell." It is noteworthy that even web3 natives aren't eating their own dog food yet—every community I've interacted with so far is using Twitter, Signal, and Discord (a Microsoft product).

What to watch:

Will Web3 natives start to "dogfood" their own principles for social media, or will they keep relying on centralized companies like Twitter, Signal, Telegram, and Discord (owned by Microsoft) to communicate?

A first, very early signal that a wider offering of Web3 experiences is starting to take hold will be when more Web3 builders start using more Web3 products in their own day to day interactions.

Before we can see any uptick in Web3 adoption, however, user experiences will need to improve. This brings me to my next point: Web3 experiences today still feel overly techie.

[UX Level] Web3 Salience: Winning projects will create pure, embedded user experiences.

Web3 products still feel really techie. From a UX perspective, we can watch the evolution of Web3 Salience—a measure of how techie something feels—among Web3 product experiences.

Something is salient if it is "conspicuous; prominent, or noticeable" (Wordnik). Tech Salience is a qualitative measure of how prominent or hidden the technical aspects of a product are to a user.

For example, the technology that powered early automobiles was extremely prominent. Early adopters needed to be well aware of how to crank up their internal combustion engines and how to keep track of innumerable fluids, pressures, and other metrics that kept their machines functioning. The clicks and clacks (and breakdowns) of these early machines made their underlying technologies extremely salient. Today's drivers, by contrast, needn't know anything about how their cars actually work.

Web3 Salience is a measure of how obvious to a user the app their using is a "Web3" app. Up to present year, most Web3 experiences were very obviously Web3: apects of user experience like seed phrases and key management require a level of technical sophistication that most users will never care about.

From a UX perspective, we can watch the evolution of Web3 Salience among Web3 product experiences.

I call these high-salience experiences "Raw Web3 Experiences." Raw Experiences require a user to understand the fundamentals of how Web3 technology works, and are littered with "landmines" that could completely undermine their goals and experiences.

Raw Web3 Experiences are user experiences with high Web3 Salience. It is very obvious to users that they're using a Web3 product and they likely need a high degree of knowledge about Web3 principles to accomplish their intended task without numerous errors.

Until now, most Web3 experiences have been extremely raw. The major exception to this has been simple custodial wallet experiences ususally embedded in banking experience apps that enable people to buy crypto. For example, CashApp enables a person to buy Bitcoin almost like a stock. In these cases, the Web3 Salence factor is low: users don't have to know anything about blockchains, crypto wallets, protocols, smart contracts, etc...

Embedded Web3 Experiences are user experiences with low Web3 Salience—apps don't make it apparent to users that they're using Web3 technology, and users do not need a high degree of understanding of Web3 principles to be successful in their intended tasks.

The above statement about custodial wallets, however, is likely to make principled Web3 natives uncomfortable. A core tenet of Web3 is that a user holds their own assets themselves, not with an intermediary. In the case of CashApp, the Bitcoin is held by a corporation: Block, Inc. Custodial wallets may hold crypto assets, but because they're technically held by an intermediary, they're fundamentally not Web3.

An industry can't grow if it requires high levels of technical understanding from its users. In 2023, the projects that will lead The Shift will be those that can figure out how to launch pure, embedded experiences.

What to watch: In 2023, will Web3 projects start to offer more embedded pure-Web3 experiences? If so, it may lead to greater adoption.

There is a lot of talk in the Web3 industry right now in ways that projects will start to be able to offer less Web3 Salient experiences. I'll undoubtedly be commenting on more of them on this blog in more detail moving forward.

Pure embedded experiences, though, are hard to create today for a simple (but daunting) reason: the core infrastructural technologies just aren't there yet. For these experiences to become possible, the industry as a whole will need to evolve. In particular, the industry needs a concentration of devleopment effort on those core technologies. That brings us to the next point: a consolidation around protocols.

[1.2] The industry will start to consolidate around a few protocols.

A distinctive part of Web3 is its decentralized ethos. For new comers, this can be a little confusing, but the best way to think about this is to focus on two concepts: interoperability and shared resources. Both of these enable an industry to maximize efficiency in its growth without consolidation toward large oligarctic organizations. One of the biggest shared resources that enables interoperability is protocols.

A protocol is a set of standards that everyone's code follows. If there is a protocol, two completely separate organizations will be able to build software that will be interoperable—even if those organizations don't communicate with one another. Consider how the industrial revolution was able to accelerate once everyone decided to use standard mm- or inch-based measurements on their nuts and bolts. Those standards are protocols.

An example from Web1 is the HTTP protocol. Because everyone in the industry agrees on this protocol, it is possible to have hundreds of companies building browsers and thousands of companies building websites without everyone needing to coordinate individually.

The centralization of standards such as web protocols is what makes decentralized ecosystems possible: they reduce the "transactions costs" of multiple organizations working together.

Protocols act as flywheels for industries in a lot of ways. For example, they lower redundancy and cost through:

• Interoperability: Protocols reduce the headaches of trying to make bespoke systems work together (imagine how easy it is to go to the hardware store and know that any 9mm nut can be turned by any 9mm wrench).

• Workforce development: Consider how many low-cost fullstack web development bootcamps exist today. The reason this industry can thrive is because there are a handful of skills fundamental languages that everyone can learn to get their first programmer job (HTML, CSS, JavaScript...).

• Division of Labor: Protocols create opportunities for companies to emerge that optimize for very narrow problems in a tech stack with the confidence that there is a large market to sell to. One (of hundreds) of examples from Web2 is Postman, an application that developers use to test API calls while building. Postman works for everyone in web development because everyone uses the same web protocols.

However, protocols take a lot of effort. Every protocol needs a community of foundations, companies, and individual contributors to rally around it, fund its improvement, and build out intermediate software. This, in turn, enables customer-facing companies to more easily build out apps. Protocols also take a lot of marketing: HTTP may be great, but if the wider engineering community had heard of it, it could have never become ubiquitous.

Protocols in Web3: A thousand flowers blooming.

Today it seems like everyone in Web3 is trying to establish a protocol. This is important in a nascent industry because nobody really knows what the best protocol design is for use cases that don't exist yet.

Letting a thousand flowers bloom, however, is an expensive way to operate. The more time and money are spread between competing on protocols, the less concentrated focus there can be on protocol improvement and the development of practical apps. As the Crypto Research and Design lab noted in its Looking Ahead to 2023 report, many app-oriented teams find themselves spending more time building out basic infrastructure components than focusing on user experience aspects because the fundamental infrastructure of all of the web3 protocol ecosystems are so underdeveloped.

What to watch:

Will the industry consolidate around fewer protocols? If so, it may mean an acceleration in user experience.

As the industry warms up to the current bear market and resources become more scarce, I'll be interested to see if there is some consolidation of protocols. If there is, we will likely see an acceleration of improvement on user experiences as more engineers will be focused on maturing the middle-ware problems that are needed to build better customer-facing apps.

Much of this section is inspired by a report we wrote at the Crypto Research and Design Lab (kudos to Lauren Serota in particular who was a wonderful thought partner and the primary writer on that section of the report).

Designers in Web3 will start to adopt a more "community centered" rather than "human-centered" approach. This will lead a shift from tech-first to community-first Web3 adoption.

"Communities" can describe organizations large and small. They can be a girl scout troup. A bowling league. A religious organization. An orchestra. A community garden. They consist of members who organize around a purpose—devoting their time, effort, money, or other resources to the community to achieve that purpose.

Communities have a special set of problems. They bind themselves with rules, and use democratic processes to alter those rules. They often elect members to play certain roles, and give those roles permissions to control and manage communal resources. They also mitigate how their members interact, often trying to find ways to streamline those interactions. They track certain accomplishments or contributions that each member has made, and find ways to track and display these attributes to other members of the community.

One of the core value propositions of Web3 technology in theory is the ability to enable groups of people to manage community assets in streamlined, more transparent ways. So far, the adoption of Web3 technologies by existing communities have been anemic. In 2023, it will be interesting to see if this starts to change.

[ Adoption Signal ] Community-first rather than technology-first

I want to distinguish between two types of communities who interact with Web3 in different ways. All communities are focused around something (bowling, religion, orchestral music, etc...). Some communities are focused around Web3 technology. I'm going to give these two categories names for now:

In any evolution of a new technology, the early phases are made up of Technology-Focused Communities. In the garage-days of Apple Computer, for example, PCs were sold to tech enthusiasts at conferences, meetups, and through industry magazines. These communities were made up of professionals and skilled amatuers who were happy to put up with UX shortcomings (and probably saw these short-comings as opportunities to demonstrate their sophistication or start their own businesses).

Over time, the critical mass of communities who use a technology shifts from Tech-Focused to Non-Tech-Focused. Today, most churches, parent-teacher associations, and hockey clubs use PCs to communicate with their members, organize their events and manage the accounting for their dues.

The reason for the shift comes down to the difference in motivations between Tech-Focused Communities and Non-Tech-Focused Communities. The members of Tech-Focused Communities are enthusiastic about a technology's promise: they believe that as the technology improves, the world will change in a way that supports their utopian visions. They want to be a part of that change, and want to surround themselves with others who will be a part of that change.

Members of Tech-Focused Communities** are enthusiastic about a technology's promise.

Members of Non-Tech-Focused Communities** adopt technology because they have a need today that is precluding them from community activities.

Non-Tech-Focused communities don't care. They adopt technology because they have a need today that is precluding from the softball games or band camp planning that they are focused on. These communities have a low proclivity to adopt new technology based on a promise: they need something that solves a problem right now in a useful and useable way.

Web3 is still a nascent technology, and as such, almost all communities that use it are Web3-Focused Communities. We'll know a change is happening when adoption starts to occur within Non-Tech-Focused Communities.

We've started to see this a little bit already. A live example is happening in a community in The Berkshires, where a project called Humanity Cash has helped the community digitize its local currency. The Berkshares App has extremely low Web3 salience, but silently runs on blockchain technology embedded in the background.

What to watch: Do we see Non-Tech-Focused Communities adopting Web3-oriented solutions?

App experiences will pave the way. Communities won't really be able to have these types of trustless interactions unless a plurality of participants in the community is able to understand how the system works well enough to interact with it. This can only happen if user experiences improve.

This will necessitate better user interface design overall, of course, but Web3 also invites a shift in the process of designing interactions. "Human centered design" is still the common trend in the design industry today, but the principles of Web3 will push toward a new type of practice. This practice will focus primarily on the interactions between members of a collective organization: community-centered design.

[ Industry Level ] Community-centered Design Practices will be more important than "Human-Centered" design practices

In the professional design work, the meme of "Human-Centered Design," often shortened to "HCD" rose to prominence in the last several decades, HCD became an important rallying cry in an era centered around neoliberal business models that focus on customer agency. With this important development, the design industry evolved: vocabularies and practices were established, thought leaders were made, books written, talks given, university programs emerged.

The fundamental unit of analysis in Web3 shifts from the individual human to the community. Social interaction—more than simple individual psychology—becomes key.

Social constructs—like identity and money—only become real in social contexts. Web3's core use cases center around questions that communities manage today:

Web3 projects must ask how does the communities:

• manage units of exchange.

• account for ownership.

• identify who are and are not members of the community.

• manage what roles members of the community have.

• manage access to community-owned resources.

• track actions that members of the community have taken.

As a philosophy and technology, what makes Web3 special is its ability to empower communities of people to interact without reliance on centralized intermediaries.

Community Centered Design is already an established practicioner faction within the broader design industry. As Web3 matures, we can expect more of these practices and practitioners to influence the Web3 industry's design processes.

What to watch:

The vocabulary of Community Centered Design will grow in prominence within the Web3 industry.

This won't be limited to Community-Centered Designers. The Web3 industry today does not talk about social dynamics in a mature way. Much of the assumptions and normative aspirations I've heard about how "agents" in future web3 systems will act feels distinctively like we're imagining communities of homo economicus rather than communities of human beings. As more people with a backgrounds in traditional social science (like sociology or anthropology) or applied social-science (like community-centered design practitioners) enter the space, I expect to see more maturity in the way the industry crafts experiences.

What to watch:

More people with traditional social science (like sociology or anthropology) or applied social-science (like community-centered design practitioners) enter the space.

Conclusion: the road ahead

This essay is very personal: I'm excited to see how this industry grows and evolves—both as a UX strategist and as an industry analyst.

I also have a personal stake: I don't believe the paradigms of digital interaction championed by Web2 is sustainable. As mentioned above, the cracks are already starting to show: the past several years have seen increased skepticism of large corporations holding and monetizing user data.

These trends are even more worrying because our day-to-day interaction with digital systems is evolving. As machine-learning systems become even more embedded in our day today, new forms of data will start being collected. Machine learning bots need to train on information about us to have better conversations and give us better advice. Health tracking apps need to know more about us to make better predictions. Personal assistant bots need to know more about our daily lives to help us manage them.

We need a paradigm shift in the way we interact with each other and our data if we want to unlock all of the benefits these technologies promise without jumping head-first into a dystopian nightmare. The Web3 industry is starting to give us glimpses of what that non-dystopian future might look like.

We'd do best to pay attention.