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Blockchain Design Principles

The IBM Blockchain Design Team design supply chain flows and open source tools. Most users were new to blockchain. So they needed to be reassured by the principles of trust and consistency. Exposing blockchain transaction data to inform the user's understanding was a way to achieve this. By seeing what was happening a user could understand of what was actually happening. "People want to “see the blockchain” even when they don’t need to."

Motion and animation were used to give meaning to unfamiliar processes. Subtle use of animation provided constant feedback so the user always knew what was going on. A consistent visual language guided the user through unfamiliar empty states.

Excitement for new technology should improve lives and not create more problems. To achieve this the team's principles were informed by user needs from the beginning.

Overview by @benbrignell

  1. Design for trust

  2. Data exposure

  3. Consistency

  4. Constant feedback

  5. Allow for and anticipate mistakes to be made

  6. Active Guidance