Simple Steemian Says

The IT company I work for has some pretty interesting products and it is my job to train endusers , but what a lot of technical people forget though is that user experience matters. This is the same for Steem of course but I am not too worried at this point.

While user experience matters and the idea is, the simpler the better, Steem is far from simple and the interfaces are generally far from attractive for people who are used to the much more polished turnout from the centralized platforms. But, that'll change.

What is important at the moment is making sure that the infrastructure required to support development is not only sound, but it will scale outward to support a much more diverse range of applications and the heavy traffic that they could attract. The infrastructure is vital for the future of Steem as once it is bearing load, it becomes infinitely harder to develop and components start to become ingrained into the system, unchangeable without monumental effort.

The interfaces however are where the simplicity should come from and they should essentially screen users from seeing the infrastructure beneath. I is not that they hide it but for most users that will be coming onto Steem, the last thing they will want to care about is the mechanics of the system itself.

This is also why SMTs are likely going to be an onboarding facilitator for the larger projects as through the use of them, an application can streamline the experience of their users and handle the Steem side of the business themselves. Steem would become more of the enabler of the applications and the infrastructure they leverage.

While Steem does and is increasingly going to offer a wide selection of ways to interact with the blockchain, the simplification of the applications upon it is going to be the thing that really makes Steem ubiquitous in the lives of users, if not a household name. People forget that Steem doesn't need to be front and center, it can happily play in the background and be the clothes line that all the applications are pegged upon.

What I hope will eventually happen is that the applications will maintain some familiarity across the platform and we can see this already happening with the separation of the Steem wallet. Yes, this should make it more secure but what it also does is allow applications more easily leverage and incorporate the wallet into their development structures and users better manage their resources.

The great thing about Steem is that while there can be massive differences in usecase of apps upon the blockchain, they are all able to utilize the core components and users are never held to ransom on Steem because they have built up their account in one domain. Being able to shift across applications is a massive advantage for users and, for applications too.

What this means is that while applications will still have to work to retain users, the cost of trialing a new application is very low as the more one builds, the less one ever has to start from scratch and the healthier one builds, the brighter the future. A resident Orca mentioned something interesting along these lines too today in a comment.

I'm not waiting for $20 Steem, I'm waiting for 100,000 followers. - @mattclarke

It seems a long way off doesn't it? It doesn't have to be. Once a bullrun comes timed with the inevitable tipping point where blockchains and digital assets become accepted, the trickle of now will be replaced by a flood of new users into the system and it will be near instant. one, two or ten million new accounts could be knocking on the door in the matter of days or weeks depending on how it happens. Do not underestimate the speed of the internet nor the power of social bandwagons.

The umbers of users will skyrocket at some point and it will be then that the blockchain has to perform well, it has to scale, it has to allow users to move and above all, it has to be simple enough for the people @ned calls normies. They aren't going to be crypto enthusiasts, they are going to be those who are accustomed to cnetralized polish and they don't want to hear about promises, they just want to use it.

While we here no might be highly interested in the mechanism at play and even the economic levers of various kinds, most of the future users aren't going to care much and those who come to consume more than produce, won't care at all. People don't seem to believe me but even now most people here do not actually care about the way the system operates as long as they are satisfied.

User satisfaction is a tricky business and many businesses struggle to find the right balance but Steem has an advantage in this regard too as it is more like a carnival full of rides and attractions where there really is (or could be) something for everyone. People put so much focus on the earning side of it that they forget that it is likely to end up a secondary function within the ecosystem, much like it is in the world now.

Sure, money, taxes and debt make it all happen in this world currently, but money is useless unless it is able to purchase something desired or needed. The future of Steem the coin is that it will grant access to possibility on and off Steem the blockchain in multiple ways. And, with the growing ecosystem, it could also be a hub for interoperability between blockchain, like @newageinv mentioned also.

With an eclectic community distributed across the world with varying interests that can both overlap in some and be fundamentally different in other areas, it is not inconceivable to envisage communities intertwining other blockchains and currencies into their applications. Some might be other Steem SMTs, some might be off the Steem chain altogether with hooks that maintain the tracking.

But again, the average user isn't going to care much about the technological trappings, no matter how impressive or complicated they may be. All they will care about is that whatever application they use is friendly, welcoming and available when they need and want it. It could be a game they play or, a personal banking application that allows them to buy groceries at their local corner store, it doesn't matter.

There are a lot of good devs here but for the most part, they make things look like engineers have designed with engineers in mind as users. The complexity, the bare bones, the utility without beauty will eventually have to give way to clean lines and smooth UXs that are a joy to use. Again, this is secondary to the infrastructure for now but at some point, the infrastructure needs to disappear behind beautiful skins users will love.

The great thing about Steem is that anyone with the skills can develop on it and there is almost no end to how much can be developed upon it. In time, the creative minds of infra will be joined by the creative minds of design to develop something that not only works, but makes people want to use it over and over and over.

While they fall in love with the design, they will slowly learn that there is a hell of a lot more under the hood and the beauty of Steem runs much deeper than the skin.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]