UX Blockchain Certification Program

This work was completed under the direction of Clint Schnee, Founder of UXperts.co.

UXperts — a user-centred design agency, and Blockable — a Blockchain development agency based out of Kelowna, BC, had discussions about potential partnerships together to create an auditing and certification process for the blockchain applications they would build. This program would serve as a measure of increasing public safety and trust through better design, and more importantly, the progression of accessibility in application technology. Clint, the founder of UXperts wanted to get a head start. He came to me with the brief:

What would a certification program look like?

What would be needed?

How much would it cost?

I began with 10 hours a week to research, plan, and design the certification program.

Rough Outline

Clint Schnee had brainstormed the elements and designed a prototype of the achieved certificate when we kicked off the project. My first job was to take these components, build out a program outline and financial model.

I used Asana to map the program. It was a cost-effective and efficient way of organizing the program information and architecture.

Framework Development

Once we had a framework of processes and their components, we began to build the pieces. My second job was to tackle designing the heuristical evaluation component. We collected heuristic frameworks from several trusted sources:

• NN/g — Nielsen Norman Group
• usability.gov
• IBM’s Blockchain design principals
• Web 3 Design Principles

I mapped the data of these heuristics, adding the missing pieces of specific parameters, and translations into blockchain specific applications, or “Dapps”. I had to determine what parts of the operating system design to evaluate. This meant stripping down the Human Interface Guidelines and Material Design to fit our context.

I then tackled accessibility. I determined that accessibility needed to be its own component, as it could not be measured like the other standard uses of interfaces. We needed the process of determining whether or not a native application was built properly with assistive technology capability. I dug through W3 Organization, the authoring body of the WCAG Accessibility standards for answers. I determined the process was for the company to provide us with a DOM map, mapping their custom elements to the XML markup of assisted technologies. Once a map artifact was distributed to us, we could run the application through a compiler, and determine the accuracy of assisted technology implementation.

We decided at that point that we wanted to put accessibility first. We wanted to ensure that an application that failed our accessibility evaluation would not pass the certification, regardless of excellence in other areas. Because of this, we decided that the evaluation process outlined above would serve as a precondition for participating in the program.

Usability Testing for Accessibility

We determined that the best marker for usability for accessibility would be through moderated usability sessions in the user’s controlled environment. We would also have to think about who would be our target users for accessibility profiles. We also had to consider if we would adopt these profiles for each application given their context, or if there was a standard target.

After discussion, we agreed that there was a large range of ability sets and that there is no standard target. But for our development purposes, we needed to start with something. We narrowed the scope of our MVP program to include accessibility profiles of individuals with colour vision deficiencies, low sight, and no sight.

At the same time, a design consultant was connected to us, Derek, who is a non-sighted individual. He was keen to work with us to champion the accessibility testing and evaluation portion of the program.

Program timeline

Now that we had a better idea of the program components and their processes, we could better estimate of time and cost for potential partner Blockable. I worked to refine the financial model, taking to account new developments and ideas captured in our design process.

Road Blocked

We were presenting our latest program outline when we received the news that Blockable’s funding had been temporarily withheld. Unfortunately, Blockable needed to stop project development until further notice, which meant that we would have to follow suit. Or would we?

Finding Ethereum Foundation

Not wanting to stall the development of this project, I looked for grants that could fund our further research and development. When I came across the Ethereum Foundation, I became so excited! They had grants for UX projects that would help support the adoption of blockchain. We felt our certification process would help adoption by providing standards and trust in the process and products. I started writing the application.

As I’m not the finest writer, we called in some help to refine the application. A seasoned grant writer and blockchain designer herself, Sarah Donaldson came to the rescue. The group of us carried the application to the finish line. Such an incredible feeling!

Until we didn’t get the grant! We were unsuccessful.

But Clint assured me that if the bell curve teaches us anything, the blockchain industry will stabilize, and we have a head start on this venture. All is not lost, just put on pause. And I gained more depth of knowledge in blockchain applications, accessibility, and program design. I’d call that a big win!!! I’m very thankful that Clint invested in this business discovery, not just for myself, but for all of the industry.

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