Hands-on

First, a big thanks to Spiral for renewing my grant and all their fantastic support. Really could not ask for a better sponsor. Thank you so much 🙏.

This week ended up being more hands on than the previous two. I do need my share of practical design work and discussion.

The new Bitcoin Core App (not sure if that will be the final name) is moving to a stage where design implementations details start to really matter. It took time (mostly from developers) to lay the technical foundation, and now front-end development is getting more attention. The initial version of the application will just run a Bitcoin node and offer a simple block clock visualization. Functionality is intentionally kept minimal, so we can focus on layout a rock-solid foundation overall (tech & design). I’d love it if this can be absolutely world-class on all fronts. You can find the Figma file here, there’s also a flow diagram, and below is a video around some of the design exchange this week around this issue from Jarol.

The JoinMarket Web UI project is also making good progress. While I was mostly off over Christmas and New Years, the rest of the team has made fantastic progress. In a way, there have been two efforts over the last months. One the one hand, we explored new design concepts a little more freely from a user perspective (here’s the Figma file I am working on), on the other hand, the developers worked ground-up from the technical side. The big step is now to get a first version functional and ready for launch on Raspiblitz, Umbrel, and Citadel. This version will not be the most beautiful or convenient, but it will be great for early adopters and developers. Over time, with iteration, it will then improve and it will become more in line with the design concepts (if those concept hold up to actual use and feedback). I think it will eventually be a fairly simple application, but there remain various UX challenges around abstracting complexity and finding just the right ways to present functionality and information to users.

The Wallet Design Improvement Project kicked off for the year with a really productive call. Looks like we’ll first tackle Blixt by going through a proper design sprint. Really looking forward to see this evolve.

Really liked this podcast episode about open-source opportunities and Yackni’s self-initiated design challenge this week (we need to create some of these for the community). Next week, I hope we can wrap up our Lightning revision to the design guide (and make a big deal about it), update the Bitcoin Icon set with more Satoshi symbol concepts, and make a good impression and learn more about open design at FOSDEM. Plus, Stephen and I will be on twitch.tv/bitcoindevelopers to talk to Conor about getting started with the Bitcoin UI Kit.

Peace & happiness.